September 10, 2026

Words: Elizabeth Fazzare

John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects: From Harvard Classmates to Design Partners

As classmates in the Harvard Graduate School of Design architecture program, John Friedman and Alice Kimm found themselves repeatedly asking each other for peer reviews. “We realized early on that our sense of composition is not identical, but definitely complementary,” Kimm recalls, “which makes us good critical partners.” After graduation, stints at firms, including Álvaro Siza’s Portugal office for Friedman, and collaborative side projects, the pair founded their own studio in Los Angeles in 1996 (and married in 1999). While the first official commission for John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects was interiors-only—a Santa Monica nightclub with no windows—today, it is sought after for fresh, playful, light-filled structures that also improve their urban surroundings. “Since the beginning, we’ve had a strong idea of the kind of projects we’d like to do to make the world a bit better,” Friedman says.

Architecture is “all about creative problem-solving,” adds Kimm, who’s the former chair of undergraduate architecture at the University of Southern California. Friedman notes that conceptual art has long been an inspiration for their solutions. Within socially minded civic, education, and residential buildings both large and small, JFAK produces richly layered environments—whatever the budget.

IDOLS 30 years: John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

  • A young girl sits on a ledge in front of a modern white building with colorful vertical panels. An adult walks in the background.
    Wonderland Elementary School’s integrated benches and shade-providing fins of powder-coated steel. Photography by Benny Chan/fotoworks.
  • Two people sitting on a white couch in front of a bookshelf, both facing the camera and smiling.
    JFAK Architects cofounders Alice Kimm and John Friedman. Photography by Jessica Sample. 
  • Modern white outdoor staircase with curved walls, a tall cactus, and an opening above revealing blue sky and green trees in the background.
    Kimm and Friedman’s house in Silver Lake, 2021. Photography by Wide Horizon Group.
  • Curved modern walkway with glass railings, wooden slats, and concrete beams, partially open to the outside, with plants visible through the structure.
    Peace Creek Villas, Chengdu, China, 2015. Photography by Benny Chan/fotoworks.
  • A corridor with pink walls features large black and pink text that reads, “LISTEN TO” on the left and “CHANGE YOUR TOMORROW” on the right. The ceiling is also painted bright pink.
    Iovine and Young Center, L.A., 2022. Photography by Benny Chan/fotoworks.
  • Modern building lobby with high ceilings, skylights, a lettered wall, white walls, a main desk, couches, and people walking on upper and lower levels.
    Roberts Pavilion at California’s Claremont McKenna College, 2016. Photography by Benny Chan/fotoworks.
  • Several people sit, walk, and ride bikes near a modern outdoor seating area and a large UC Santa Barbara sign, with trees and campus buildings in the background.
    Associated Students Bike Shop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 2023. Photography by Benny Chan/fotoworks.

Take the rainbow-finned kindergarten building at Wonderland Elementary School and the boldly painted Iovine and Young Center, which prove the firm’s ability to transform with color, even on tight Los Angeles Unified School District funds. An athletic center at Claremont McKenna University plays with monotone texture, inspired by Jasper Johns’s white-on-white paintings, and unexpected transparencies, a solution also used for the Peace Creek Villas in Chengdu, China, and the architects’ own Silver Lake home, where cutouts and curvilinearity add whimsy to the modernist scheme. A student-funded bike repair shop with a wheel-shaped shade structure at UC, Santa Barbara, has become so well-loved, it’s a social hub. In all these projects, architecture helps forge identity and community. As it celebrates 30 years, JFAK is scaling up that mission. jfak.net

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