Jeff Kaplon and Kristin Korven, the meticulous design duo behind the architecture and interiors firm Part Office, have called northeast Los Angeles home since establishing their practice five years ago. Korven grew up in the nearby Santa Clarita Valley, developing an affection for the more nondescript aesthetics of Southern California’s built environment, while Kaplon moved to L.A. in 2012 and has since developed an appreciation for the city’s peculiar architectural legacy. “We want to make aesthetic and emotional connections to various stages of 20th-century architecture with our work,” said Korven.
Locally, the business partners have made a name for themselves through an unwavering commitment to precision and craftsmanship and a focus on materials and the subtleties of their effects. Yet it is their ability to elevate inexpensive materials, through detail and subtle handiwork, that puts them in line with earlier L.A. architects—Rudolph Schindler, Frank Gehry, and Eric Owen Moss, to name a few—who routinely treated stucco and plywood as precious resources. A handful of collaborations with the equally fastidious Mexico City-based firm Productura on projects around the city, including temporary structures for the 2020 Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair and a private library for the architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, have further honed Part Office’s impeccable design credentials.
