As Design Manager, David Ross offers over 30 years of experience as one of FF&P’s leading design visionaries. The longstanding leader of our residential practice, David imbues all his design with a strong sense of domesticity and humanism. In addition to his work on projects of all sizes in the residential, academic, and workspace realms, David has led FF&P’s ongoing efforts in exhibition design at some of Southern California’s premiere cultural institutions, including LACMA, the Getty Museum, and the Skirball Cultural Center. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from SCI-Arc.
Methodical but easygoing, Nathan Prevendar is a nimble manager of the entire design and construction process. Nathan cares deeply about his clients and teams, and is known for accessibility and responsiveness. His empathic yet objective approach to architectural practice has enabled him to lead all types and scales of FF&P projects, from large academic buildings to houses. Nathan obtained his Bachelor of Architecture from USC and his Master’s degree in Architectural Studies from MIT.
Matthew Kelley, AIA is as visionary as he is pragmatic. A careful observer, Matt has been able to absorb and influence FF&P’s design ethos in equal measure. His versatility has propelled him into a leading role in designing some of our signature institutional and commercial projects, from their guiding ideas to their complex construction details. Matt obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and his Master’s degree in Architecture from SCI-Arc.
Marisa Kurtzman, RA, LEED AP brings energy and focus to spearheading FF&P’s visioning, programming, and planning work. A linguist and a “people person,” she loves finding out what makes institutions and organizations tick, and then translating those values and goals into design concepts that are distinctly expressive of their identities. Marisa received her Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and her Master’s degree in Architecture from Yale.
A native of Japan and a graduate of SCI-Arc, Takashige Ikawa is both precise and poetic. Perhaps due to his early training as a photographer, he sees architecture as a series of emotional moments to be connected through space and time. Whether designing a house, an exhibition, or a large creative workspace, Taka immerses himself in context and in the spirit of a place. The results are diverse but consistently thoughtful and thought-through.
Anupama Mann is a researcher and designer living in Los Angeles. Their academic work focuses on development projects, historical studies and media analysis and can be found on Researchgate and Academia. Anupama is also Principal at Wyota Workshop that specializes in residential building projects. Some of their work can be seen at www.wyotaworkshop.com.
Becky Nicolaides is an expert on the history of the 20th century, and the author of several award-winning studies of suburban life in America. After receiving her Ph.D. from Columbia University, she became a tenured faculty member at UCSD, then moved into full-time consulting for public history projects, cultural resources, film/TV, and podcasts. Her work focuses on the history of cities, suburbs, and metro areas — and especially LA. She’s author of The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945 (Oxford, Jan 2024), My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago), and The Suburb Reader, co-edited with Andrew Wiese, two editions (Routledge). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other outlets, and her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, Huntington Library, UCLA, and the EU Erasmus+ Programme. She’s a lifelong Angeleno and co-founder of the consulting firm History Studio.
Tequila Mockingbird is a Los Angeles based artist, historian, cultural preservationist and indisputable punk legend. With a career spanning over three decades, Tequila is the curator of the Los Angeles Punk Museum, hosts The Punkast with UCLA musicologist Jessica Schwartz, acts for movies and television, and uses her expertise in underground music from the past century a music supervisor in the entertainment industry.
In tandem with experimental music luminary Peter Ivers, Tequila booked the most prominent punk acts of the era for their television debut on New Wave Theater, including Black Flag, X, and Circle Jerks. Together, the pair explored the tragic glamour of 1980’s Hollywood spaces, played in the Ivers’ last band Vitamin Pink, travelled the world, counting among their friends both Timothy Leary and the Dalai Lama. Performing with everyone from members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience to Jeff Goldblum, it’s safe to say that if it happened and if it was cool – Tequila was right there.
As an architectural historian, Tequila is fascinated by the ghosts of history and the way that they layer over the ravages of time, seeping into the backdrop of our day to day. A few of Tequila’s most persistent memories of begone LA spaces include the opulent Garden of Allah and the Sunset Strip’s House of Blues, which blended modern art folk art, and beyond into an ancient looking – but very much alive – venue. Within the architectural world, she’s counted giants like Frank Gehry and the late Richard Neutra among her personal friends. “To preserve the past and keep it alive,” she says, typifying the ethos behind her tireless drive to sing for the spaces and songs we’ve almost forgotten. Never shying away from the unorthodox, she counts even the cemeteries of the city among its most rich and beautiful places. “That’s your forever real estate,” she aptly judges. With her encompassing sense of place, its past, and its dynamic, haunted present, Tequila Mockingbird is one of LA’s renaissance women – an invaluable fount of ruthless historicism and legendary taste.
Mary is a Senior Associate and architectural historian at Architectural Resources Group in downtown Los Angeles. She specializes in historic resource surveys, landmark nominations, and historic context statements. Also an archaeologist, Mary is particularly drawn to vernacular and less visible sites that tell the stories of the historically underrepresented people of Los Angeles.
Nastassja Lafontant is a South Florida native from a Haitian/Colombian family, and is a recent architecture graduate from the University of Southern California. During her time in California, Nastassja held an internship at Studio One Eleven, where she was a part of a team that spearheaded an American Institute of Architects project about Roy Sealey. She was also a final contestant in the AIA Film Challenge, for which she created a film that shed light on the homelessness in Bellflower City. Nastassja is currently pursuing graduate studies in architectural urban development and landscaping at Harvard University.
