Janette Kim

Janette Kim is an architectural designer, researcher, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay area. Kim’s practice operates in three modes: as principal of the design firm All of the Above, as co-director of the research laboratory Urban Works Agency at the California College of the Arts, and as an independent scholar and author. Across these roles, she promotes equitable design protocols and creates multimedia decision-making tools to help translate between architecture and its stakeholders. In her own words, Kim aims to “empower communities to realize a more equitable redistribution of land, resources, and risk.”

Projects include:

• In It Together, a board game that tests how diverse communities can work together to adapt to climate change. Developed with the All Bay Collective.
• Pinterest Headquarters, the transformation of a 45,000-square-foot warehouse into a flexible office space for a rapidly expanding company. Designed with First Office.
• The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform, a book that maps the political implications of energy management in architecture. Co-authored by Eric Carver. 

Janette Kim received a bachelor’s in architecture from Columbia University and an MArch from Princeton University School of Architecture. She is an assistant professor at California College of the Arts and the editor and founder of ARPA Journal, a digital publication on applied research practices in architecture.

Kim has received awards from the Graham Foundation, AIA San Francisco, and the Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellowship. Her work has been published and exhibited widely.

More information

• These board games play out how climate change will reshape our cities, Fast Company
• “The Underdome Guide” Interrogates Architecture’s Role in Energy Reform, Metropolis
• Wild Life on the 7 Line, The Brian Lehrer Show