Our Chicago office is now more than a year old and staffed with 3 full-time employees! Although they enjoy the full support of our Long Beach home office, Chris Garcia, Ron Javier, and Dafne Serdio are working hard to make their presence known in the local industry scene. This means that on top of designing projects, collaborating with clients, and maintaining project schedules, this tremendous trio also spends a good deal of time at networking events after-hours rubbing shoulders with designers, suppliers, brand executives and other architecture firms. Two recent events that had our Chicago staff out on the town were Hospitality Design’s CitySCENE Chicago and The AIA Chicago Small Projects/Small Firms Awards.

CitySCENE Next Generation Networking events are gatherings hosted by Hospitality Design Magazine that bring together up-and-coming and established hospitality professionals for a fun evening of networking. These casual events draw together attendees for an evening of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at some of the area’s hottest hotels and event spaces. Chris, Ron, and Dafne, along with team members from White Space interiors attended the April 18^th event at Boleo Bar and Restaurant at the Kimpton Gray Hotel in Downtown Chicago. The group from KAA/White Space took advantage of the chance to connect with many local professionals, and toured the Hospitality Design model room. Don’t they look cozy?

More recently, our Windy City group attended The Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA)’s 7^th annual Small Projects/Small Firms Awards on May 4^th. Billed as “the biggest little party of the year” by AIA, the evening highlighted the best residential, commercial, and institutional architecture and functional objects designed over the past year. Presented by the AIA Chicago Small Practitioners Group, the goal of this awards program is to raise public awareness of the value that architects bring to small projects and to promote small practitioners as a resource for design excellence. Chris, Ron, and Dafne were each able to vote for their favorite project out of 92 submitted for the People’s Choice Award, and enjoyed exploring the display room at Architectural Artifacts, where the awards were held.