SFS Architecture Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Thursday, February 28th marked the fiftieth anniversary of SFS Architecture’s founding, and to celebrate the semicentennial event, SFS employees, consultants and clients gathered at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center in Overland Park, Kansas yesterday. The event was hosted by meteorologist and Kansas City fixture Katie Horner, with speeches by SFS partners and the Executive Director at the Johnson County Park & Recreation District Jeff Stewart.

The Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center is an adaptive reuse project completed by SFS in 2017 that converted Manuel Morris’ iconic midcentury building into a multipurpose community center. The new space features a museum, theater, rehearsal studios, event spaces, classrooms and offices. Retrofits included the entire building envelope to meet contemporary energy-performance goals, utilizing a combination of existing stone and wood and introducing cast-in-place concrete, insulated glass and flat-seam metal paneling. A new 4,000 square foot mezzanine is clad by louver-shaded glass to minimize solar-heat gain and increase natural light.

SFS began the celebrations in February by releasing the firm’s first monograph, a visual history of select projects designed to inspire those who use them and enrich the communities around them.

Here’s to 50 more.