Business

KAA Design Group: Under One Roof

KAA Design Group puts its philosophy front and center. Visit their website, and the first thing you see is their declaration that “good design elevates the human spirit. As a result, every project is a collaboration containing the essential elements of respect, integrity, and harmony.” Those lofty words go well beyond a generic motto like “the customer is always right,” and KAA is committed to putting into practice what they preach.

KAA is dedicated to the holistic nature of design. In other words, they work in harmony. Their landscape and interior designers work in harmony to ensure the finished home or workspace is a unified whole. Their architects work in harmony with the environment so that each building looks natural in its setting. And the tools they use for everything from 3D modeling to creating photo books work in harmony as well — since KAA has standardized on the Mac.

iPhoto has been huge for us. I can take a group of photos, make a catalog, and order online. Three days later, a book shows up. The books are so clean, so beautiful, and the clients love them.

“We’re not an ordinary architecture firm,” says Grant Kirkpatrick, co-founder and principal architect. “We are a design house. Combine architecture, landscape, and interior design and you bring something extra to the table.” It’s that something extra that has won KAA clients such as Tom Hanks and Christie’s auction house, and earned them profiles in publications as varied as “Interior Design,” “Los Angeles Magazine,” “Architectural Record,” “The Robb Report,” “The Wall Street Journal,” and “The New York Times.”

Macs and rocks

KAA’s office in Marina Del Rey, California houses a team of 55 talented production artists, designers, and architects, headed by Kirkpatrick and partner Steve Straughan. The office space is a testament to creativity, with walls covered by plans and sketches and desks filled with sample books, fabric swatches, building materials, and, for the landscape architects, even grass and rocks. Everywhere there’s evidence of KAA projects, from a multi-million dollar custom home, to the refurbishment of a Southern California retail icon.

Kirkpatrick says, “I can’t imagine operating this business on any other platform. The Mac is the platform for high-end design.” Today, all of their architectural, interior, graphic and landscape design is done on the Mac.

For building design and drafting, the firm turns to PowerCADD, which works beautifully “at a fraction of the cost of AutoCAD.” Kirkpatrick continues, “And both PowerCADD and AutoCAD speak the same language, so sharing files with consultants who are using AutoCAD is seamless.”

Beyond architecture, KAA’s Macs go further — from initial presentations for clients to the creation of design documents and elevation plans, from visualizations done in Photoshop and Illustrator, to the sharing and collaboration of project files between design teams over the firm’s servers.

It’s all part of how KAA helps exceed their clients’ expectations. As Kirkpatrick explains, “When you are charged with managing a $30 million project, you have to deliver value. You have to have the infrastructure in place — you have to build confidence.” Fortunately, having a reliable technology infrastructure in place frees the KAA team to concentrate on the needs of the customers.

Color and vision

Clients tend to fall into two categories, according to Interior Design Group Director Alana Homesley, “either they don’t know what they like, or they like a lot of things.” In either case, the Mac can help focus the vision. “We design everything on the Mac,” Homesley says. “We are continually copying and pasting, changing proportions, adjusting colors.”

The issue of colors, a factor of crucial importance in interior design, is one that the Mac handles with reliability. According to Homesley, “The Mac is design savvy. The colors are true. We want to present great images with the right colors.”

After meeting with their clients, KAA’s designers start refining concepts using PowerCADD, Illustrator, and Photoshop to create a Design Value Board. Interior designer Devanee Niednagel explains, “The Design Value Boards communicate our vision to the client. We bring in elevations, computer drawings, illustrations, and suddenly there’s a product.”