LATEST NEWS

The mother ship is bustling with new faces and we are excited for new opportunities to collaborate as we grow.  We interviewed our newest freshman class between initiation rituals and asked them to give us a tweet-sized introduction:

Karen Filippe started building furniture during her undergrad in graphic design at LMU. That led her to working at the Eames House. After a few years there she decided to get her M.Arch 1 at SCI-ARC. First architecture job was at Gehry for 3 1/2 years. Influences: Case Study Houses, Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron.  Hobbies: Cooking, boxing, and dominos.

Margaret (Margot) Jamison attended NC State as an undergrad and received her M.Arch at Cal Poly Pomona.  The balance between the practical and the aesthetic drew Margaret to architecture.  During her free time Margaret enjoys making things and spending as much time outdoors as possible!

Andrea Urmanita is a native Angeleno drawn to design, urbanism, and public policy. Yogi, dancer, stand-up paddleboader, map collector, seeker of the perfect karaoke song. An ideal day involves exploring an LA neighborhood on foot, people-watching, and enjoying a good IPA.

Nick Duch moved to LA from Brooklyn (with a short detour in Portland, OR) late last year. He enjoys climbing, biking, cooking,  and mastering the full scale version of Frogger that is biking in LA traffic.

Jaime Olmos is a Los Angeles native who enjoys hip-hop, cooking, hiking and traveling. At KFA he is fulfilling a goal of designing urban infill multi-family residences in LA. The architectural fabric of our city needs improving. Jaime hopes to add beauty and interest to our environment by designing enduring, environmentally responsive buildings.

Misty Kaplan originates from Burlington, Vermont. She likes mid-century modernism, industrial ruins, New England farmhouses, and prefers to wear sweatpants whenever possible.

Pictured in photo clockwise from top left:  Karen, Margot, Andrea, Nick, Jaime, Misty

Pictured (clockwise from top left) are: New Genesis, Palace Hotel, Hayworth House, Villas at Gower, Linda Vista, and NoHo Senior Villas

For Affordable Housing/ While market rate projects are susceptible to the ups and downs of our economy, affordable housing has always benefitted from the consistency of available redevelopment funds and housing tax credits. With the demise of the CRA, we anticipated a drop off in the amount of affordable housing projects. We have actually found that, after a dip, our resourceful developers are creatively accessing various funding sources to keep their pipelines pumping.

Of our twelve current affordable housing projects, five are in design and seven are under construction. They all have Federal Tax Credits and then a witch’s brew of funding from the LA Housing and Community Investment Department, Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Program, County of Los Angeles Community Development Commission, private equity, HUD 202 Capital Grant, AHP and County Department of Mental Health funds.

Each of these funding sources targets different segments of the low-income population: seniors, emancipated youth, chronically homeless, homeless vets and homeless mentally ill. In order to receive funding from increasingly competitive sources, affordable developers are incorporating two or more population groups into their projects to qualify for available funds and serve neighborhood needs. For example, Mosaic Apartments was designed to address the neighborhood need
for senior housing and housing for low-income families.