Pumpkin Carving Tradition lives on

Lauren and Greg carving

The Boss making an architectural pumpkin

Izzo and Knepley's creation, good enough for #2 place!

Jen and Sam's porcupine, a tie for second.

Dave and Katie's owl, the grand champ.

It wouldn't be October if we didn't have our annual pumpkin carving contest in the office. This year was sort of the exception. Technically, we did our pumpkin carving this year in November due to some big deadlines, but that didn't stop the fun. To be fair, partners were randomly selected from a hat, and each team had an hour and a half or thereabouts to complete their creation.  Some were good, some were better.  This year Katie Robinson and Dave Urffer stole the title for best pumpkin from last year's reigning champ Katie Brill.  If you didn't already know, Katie Robinson is the new Katie Brill.  (marriage) Check out some of this years pumpkins on our Facebook Page.

ReInvention AIA, DC

Robert Gurney Associates Glass House

City Center Washington DC

Four Pavillion House

SeaUA

E/L Studio

E/L Studio

Salt and Pepper House

Salt and Pepper House

City Center rooftops

Robert Gurney Associates Glass House

Robert Gurney Glass House

Izzo here: Jose and I recently took part in the the AIA's Reinvention housing convention in Washington, DC where we toured some good residential architecture and sat in on some informative lectures.  Highlights of the event were the awesome tours of housing by local architects.  SeaUA, a shipping container multifamily project by Travis Price Architects started the day.  Pretty interesting.  Next up was a huge housing project on the site of the former DC convention center right downtown.  A massive project, it had some of the most awesome roof decks I had ever seen. These were half apartments and half condos with over 300k sf of retail on the ground level which is already leased up! An amazing feat in and of itself. This project was designed by Shalom Baranes and Foster Partners. A single family house by KUBE Architects dubbed the Salt and Pepper house (no relation to  Salt n pepa) started the single family dwellings. Not a huge house, but it certainly had a lot of fun surprises around every corner. Another live work house by E/L Studio was on the tour. A small architecture office on the first floor, and a small living quarters on the second floor.  Really nice use of tight quarters and really cool ceiling details.  The Four Pavillion house by esteemed architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen designed in the mid 1970s and restored recently by Richard Williams, AIA.  Another great small house within a very private suburban lot.  Really well done. And last but certainly not least, an over the top mansion in Georgetown by Robert Gurney Associates. I mean, check out that kitchen and wine cellar!

Educational Video about a Career in Architecture Starring JKR Architects!

Izzo Here: A few months ago, Tiffany (formerly of JKR, but still a close ally to the office) and I embarked on some uncharted territory.  We were approached by an awesome organization called GreenTreks to star in short film about careers in STEM or science, technology, engineering and Mathematics. This was the result.  Hopefully this will inspire you or someone you know to become an architect! Grab some popcorn!

Movers and Shakers

One of the coolest dudes ever. Him, not me.

B-Mac (Bob) and I were at the Center for Architecture last night for the award of the annual Ed Bacon Prize honoring national individuals who have advocated for excellence in urban development, planning, thought, and design through conviction of vision.  The first awardee was former Philadelphia mayor and then Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell.  He was a pretty cool dude as expected.  We talked about football, the olympics, politics, and some hotel gossip surrounding the new Comcast building and moving the Four Seasons Hotel.  He added a good story about how he convinced J.W. Marriott to build the Marriott on Market Street back in the day.  But of all the traveling he's done, believe it or not, he still thinks the Airport Marriott is one of the best hotels he's ever stayed in.    Guess who else was there... wait for it..... Ed Bacon's daughter.  That makes Bob and I only one degree from Kevin Bacon!

Izzo at the Wing Bowl

Luckily, Izzo is far enough away that we can't see the wing eating.

On this gloomy Friday, Izzo woke up at an obnoxiously early hour to go to SportsRadio 94WIP's Wing Bowl! While the rest of us are hard at work in the office, he is at the Wells Fargo Center watching the very American sport of eating wings.

**Just read that the winner was Molly Schuyler from Nebraska. She ate 363 wings. Don't google it. The pictures are gross.

Green Treks teams up with JKR for informational video

Tiff, Izzo, and Ferro

This past Monday, Green Treks, the award-winning Philadelphia-based nonprofit communications company teamed up with JKR Partners to film their upcoming educational series about STEM careers.  If you aren't familiar with STEM, it's an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  The short film is geared toward high school students that might be interested in a job in these fields but may be too scared to ask the questions they really want to know.  Tiffany and I were interviewed by a local high school student, and we quelled her fears about how much Math architects really use. Contrary to what most people think, we really don't use much complex Math.  After filming in the office,we headed to one of our construction sites around the corner where site superintendent Dave Ferro from Clemens gave us some hands on experience.

Philabundance Opens Supermarket in Chester

Grand opening celebration

Philabundance, the local food charity that has been doing great work in the Philadelphia area feeding the hungry for years, has upped the ante and built the first non-profit supermarket in the country.  We were lucky enough to help them along in their efforts to rid Chester of the dubious distinction of being a food desert.  After a few tries, we finally got the plan right, and we had the good people at Sullivan Construction knock it out of the park building it. 
Check out some news stories here: Philly.com and here and one more here.

WINDOW, Charette

One of the participants presenting her team's design

Some of our sketches

Laura here: Mike and I competed in a design-build competition, “WINDOW,” by AIA Philadelphia Associate Committee yesterday.  The Charette took place at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture, and the competition was to design a window display for Save Some Green, an eco-friendly store on 20^th and Chestnut.  The store owner told us about his business and his goals for the display, and then we were given an hour to come up with our initial ideas.  After presenting to a panel of judges, we had a final half hour to make adjustments based on feedback given to us.  Although we were not selected as the winners of the competition, the owners were pleased with our design, and are interested in working with us for a window display in the future.  We also had fun sketching our vortex of reclaimed wood and eco-products and got some free food.

Check out the winning design in a few weeks! 

Annual Phillies Outing

You need a drink before you see the Phils these days.

After a minor rain delay, the Phils got back to beatin on the Cubbies.

Butch hooking up the specials.

Serious Sergi and a photobombing Jose.

the Boss getting his birthday on.

If it seems like our office is a lot of fun, that's because it is.  In keeping with our yearly tradition, which started way back when the Phillies were actually good; last Thursday we had our annual JKR day at the Phillies.  This year was special in that it was also the Boss Man's 65th birthday.  He took full advantage of his newly granted senior citizen status and wisely got his subway ride to the ballpark for free. With age comes wisdom I guess. And like we always do, we all went back to our second favorite watering hole where we got our celebratory drinks.  The drinks taste much sweeter when the Phils win big. 

It's not chilly... It's Peru

Izzo Here: Following in the footsteps of the great master architect Jerry Roller, I decided to take the same vacation as he took in November last week with a few of my college buddies, and ventured to Peru to see the ancient Incan civilization of Machu Picchu.  After hiking the Inca trail for 4 days, I realized it's not a vacation I would recommend to most people.  Architects might like it, or world class athletes, but the average person might want to be dropped off at Machu Picchu via helicopter. 14,000 ft above sea level takes a toll on an out of shape sea level dweller like myself and the endless stone stairs didn't help.  Overall it was a great experience.  Was really impressed with all of the old stone work and most impressed with the trail itself.   Would I go again? Nope.

A parade marched through Cusco

traditional dancing ensued.

"sorry officer, I thought my knife met the required size limit."

Peru

I stopped at least forty times on this trail to rest. 

picture perfect.

 

Las Vegas____Lost Wages

Hard Rock Hotel @Rehab

Old Hard Rock Hotel

Hard Rock Parking Garage

City Center Aria

City Center Aria

Where it all started on Freemont Street

Louis Vuitton

The pool at Hard Rock

Ahhh...Pennsylvania

Some solitude on the plane

Izzo Here:  I recently was required to go to a bachelor party for a college buddy of mine in Las Vegas.  I will spare you the details of the tomfoolery, (which there wasn't much of anyway) and get right down to the nitty gritty. If you've never been to Vegas, it's sensory overload, and the architecture has a lot to do with it.  But there is some really nice contemporary stuff out there, and some really nice googie stuff.  Here is a little taste of the trip.

The Broad Street Run

Tim here - JKR Partners had quite a showing at the Broad Street Run last Sunday (May 5th).  Five of us from the office ran in the race (Laura, Lauren, Izzo, Tim, and Sean Sean Sean Sean).  Everyone did a fantastic job in this 10-mile race through the heart of Philadelphia, and did JKR Proud.

 I had to take a very important call immediately after the race. 

Laura thought that the crosswalk was the finish line.

Lauren smoked us all with a race time of 1:12:18

Not pictured: Sean Sullivan (Sean lost his numbers while rocking out to "Sweet Caroline" at the start line.)

Mike Izzo (Izzo ran into some technical difficulties.) 

FIRM CRAWL @ JKRP!

PhilaNOMA's first (and now probably annual) Firm Crawl went off without a hitch!

I can honestly say that I was a little pessimistic in thinking that we would only get about 5 or so students - especially after such a long afternoon of crawling already (we were about number 4 on the list of firms to visit)

And then it rained.
And then they were delayed.
And then someone said the pretzels were going to get stale.
And then I yelled at Sean for eating a pretzel.

But nevertheless at around 4:45 there were almost 30 students from Temple, UPenn, Drexel and Philly U in our elevator lobby - eager and ready to learn all about our home away from home - JKR Partners!

SPECIAL THANKS to Jose for being the visionary of the 'three ring circus' aka Firm Crawl - Open House at JKR Partners...
Natalya for putting the 'swag' packages together.

Tram Fun - Marissa, Sam, and Blake for the refreshments..

The 412 Lux Design Team. (Jose, Blake, Steve)

The Starplex Design Team. (Mike F.)

The SouthStar Design Team. (Zach, Mike I.)

Kim for putting up with a full house of folks hovering around her desk..

Dave for sharing his oratory skills with the group..ANDLast but certainly not least the entire staff of JKRP for your hospitality during this event....