Jesse Keyes, a design entrepreneur trained in architecture and urban planning, co-founded KZ_K Studio with his life and creative partner Karolina Zmarlak on January 1, 2009. The work fuses modernist architectural principles—advanced materials, precision construction, and functional design—into a minimal aesthetic, echoing Otto Wagner’s dictum: “Nothing impractical can ever be beautiful.”

Together, each collection is conceived, researched, designed, developed, communicated, and sold through a philosophy of “rearview innovation” and an analog ethos: create pieces with meaning (story), purpose (multi-functional utility), and longevity (highest quality materials and construction).

DESIGN PROJECTS AND TEAMS

• KZ_K Studio — Co-founder and Director

• 1 7th Avenue South — Conceived, designed, developed, and operated a unique mixed-use building in Manhattan’s West Village, the only full-floor triangular residential building in NYC

• Hotel Griffou — Spatially developed and operated, with partners Johnny Swet and Larry Poston, a notable retro-basement restaurant and bar in Greenwich Village

• La Esquina — Founding investing partner and oversight leader of a longstanding, authentic Mexican restaurant and brasserie in SoHO

• Keyes Residence (Washington, DC) — Redesigned and redeveloped the modernist private home originally created by Arthur H. Keyes in Woodley Park

• E__P — Designed, developed, and operated a live music venue in the former basement of CBGB