Firm Profile

For over twenty years, KGP Design Studio has provided the expertise and resources for our clients to transform their specific needs into innovative design solutions that positively affect individuals, communities, and cities. With offices in Washington, Honolulu and Manila, the firm benefits from a diverse multidisciplinary design team, sharing resources globally, to provide the best possible support for our clients and to craft a unique strategy of development for every project. The benefit to the client is enhanced exponentially by providing a diverse but largely interdependent range of design services including: Architectural; Urban Design; Planning and Transportation Design. An integrated design approach, based on innovation and proficiency of all disciplines, coupled with the personal engagement of the principals, ensures that all possibilities are considered in every project.

Design Approach

While each project is unique, KGP utilizes certain core strategies in the development of each project, all grounded in a process informed by the following:

An Integrated Design Approach optimizes outcome

Benefiting at the outset from a comprehensive evaluation of all impacts affecting a particular project, our team can reframe and directly address the critical issues. Familiar with maneuvering the multiple scales that a project impacts the user, from the urban to the personal, our diverse team of urban designers, architects and industrial designers pursues a collaborative approach leaving no aspects unexplored.

Effective ideas originate with clearly defined conditions

Based on the premise that a successful design strategy inherently inhabits the problems we set out to solve and reveals itself largely upon transcending individual preconceptions, an interactive collaborative process is initiated by encouraging diverse opinions in a collaborative effort including: client, users, stakeholders, and the design team.

Design is measured by the quality of life and well being of the user

KGP is committed to a process that considers architecture a means to an end only, where the project’s success is determined by a comprehensive understanding of specific social, cultural, and behavioral influences.

The architecture mediates between the user and the environment

As the physical context, whether urban or natural, and climate are incorporated or mediated in the design, sustainable practices provide an opportunity to optimize lifecycle costs and impact on the environment, but equally importantly often serve a deeper role, a connection or “window” to the natural the cycles that surround us.

Services

KGP’s overall design strategy as well as studio structure is based on the premise that architecture is not perceived as an isolated event but is a continuous experience inclusive of the “places in between”; the public realm: civic architecture, transportation networks, streets, and so on are dynamic interfaces and equally critical aspects to include as design professionals. Our design teams are composed of integrated disciplines focused on multiple aspects and scales of a project, consequently, the lines are erased for example between architecture and industrial design or transit design and urban design. As a result, the culmination of the design process is a product attuned to the complexities of the real world and to the specific needs of the client.

Architecture & Urban Design

Transportation

Bridge / Infrastucture

Bicycle / Micromobility

Commercial

Institutional

Residential

Industrial Design

Subdisciplines

Full Architectural Services
(Concept, Schematic, DD, CD, Construction Administration)

Site and Building Evaluations Feasibility Assessment

Marketing Packages/Development Tools

Conceptual Design / Pre-Design

Architectural Support Services for EIS, FEIS

Sustainability

All projects are thought through as sustainable from the location, orientation and landscape to the mechanical systems, lighting and finish materials. Consideration is given to the long-term benefits created by the sustainability of the project. A cost-benefit analysis determines the LEED level desired and even if LEED is not pursued, the design is made as sustainable as possible.

Resources

Firm believers that our tools shape not only how we solve problems but in turn shape the way we live. KGP is committed to being part of the leading edge in design technologies because it offers a notable advantage not only in quality but the range of services available to the client. Not only does building integrated modeling (BIM) allow a seamless integration of disciplines and phases, avoiding potential conflicts, but specialized analytical tools can inform ongoing decisions throughout the design process. For example, planning or building layout decisions benefiting natural ventilation, solar gain or structural integrity can be informed early in the design process with computational fluid dynamic or structural analysis as opposed to simply being mitigated later on in the process without the cohesive integration of disciplines. In a similar way, BIM can inform the client of critical data affecting building performance, efficiency, and costs on an as needed basis throughout the design process.

Equally critical is the ability to communicate a convincing representation of the project to the client and stakeholders. Forming the backbone of KGP’s illustration capabilities, 3D modeling provides the basis of producing a range of sophisticated representations, both still and video, of projects that enable a greater understanding of the work while in progress. KGP uses real time 3D rendering programs such as Lumion and Twin Motion to facilitate more efficient turnover of imaging as well as to facilitate virtual or augmented reality for communication to the client and stakeholders. Both as a design and communicative tool, manual rendering also plays an important part in the design process in the studio. The design intent infused in a gestural sketch or watercolor can offer an implicit means of communicating an idea before proceeding to the specifics of a design. As digital tools advance, the line between manual and computer illustration is progressively blurred, straddling this division and expanding our ability to articulate a convincing vision to the client. Because the capacity to develop a full palette of tools is so critical, KGP places a high priority on the constant evolution of these skills and resources available to the client.

Awards

Pennsylvania Avenue Urban Design – West of the White House 2014

AIA Washington DC Chapter – Purple Line Bridges, Unbuilt Design Award 2011

President’s Citation for Sustainability AIA Washington DC Chapter – Union Station Bicycle Transit Center, Honor Award 2010

AIA Washington DC Chapter – Fellowship Bridge, AIA Unbuilt Grand Prize Award 2010

AIA Washington DC Chapter – Tysons Tunnel (Metro), Unbuilt Design Merit Award 2009

National Organization of Minority Architects – Pentagon City Metro Canopies, Award for Design Excellence 2006

National Organization of Minority Architects – Stetson Kennedy Fellowship Bridge, Award for Design Excellence 2006

Astronauts’ Memorial Competition – 2nd Place Kennedy Space Center, FL

Clemson University Performing Arts Center Competition – Honorable Mention Clemson, SC

Historic Hawaii’s Foundation Award – C.W. Dickey Residence, Honolulu, HI

Korean War Memorial Competition – Honorable Mention Washington, DC

National Center for Botanical Study Competition – Honorable Mention NIAE, New York

Hartford Ballet Stage Set, Twentieth Century American Music Competition – 1st Place Hartford, CT

Community

KGP is not just located in DC, but is deeply embedded in DC, its culture, and its community. One of DC’s more diverse neighborhoods, Dupont Circle, at our front and backdoor -Embassy row, residential, institutional, retail. Dupont is a microcosm of greater DC; it is a laboratory in which we all participate.

Local Institutions we help support:

WABA (Washington Area Bicycle Association)
Keagan Theater
Smarter Growth
Greater Greater Washington
National Building museum
National Women’s Writers Club
Golden Triangle BID

And ongoing community events and exhibitions:

Down Under
First Friday
AIA Events
Open Houses
Pecha Kucha

People

The KGP team consists of a diverse group of architects and designers assembled from five continents. Their diverse backgrounds enrich the base of cultural as well as professional experience of the firm which in turn inspires and informs innovative solutions in our work. Subscribing to the idea that a smart solution is the result of multiple perspectives, the interaction of ideas and experiences, stimulating conversation, is the source of our professional success as well as camaraderie. At the end of the day there’s always time for the staff to rendezvous in our office café, or roof deck for an espresso to inspire further thought, helping resolve that troubling detail that didn’t get worked out during the day.

William Gallagher

Principal, FAIA NCARB

Donald Paine

Principal Design, LEED AP

Ken K. Kajiwara

Principal, AIA NCARB

Florencio V. Paraon

Managing Principal

Ethan Marsh

Associate, Senior Project Manager

Manuel Feijoo

Project Architect, AIA LEED AP

Ellen Croteau

Office Manager