2023 Best Small Practice Southeast

2023 NC Firm of the Year

  • 07/30 - STATE OF THE CITY
  • 07/31 - LOCAL MATTERS PANEL
  • 08/02 - PHILIP KAFKA
  • 08/03 - REBECCA POPOWSKY
  • 08/04 - CORY HENRY
  • 08/07 - ADAM RUFFIN
  • 08/08 - GABRIELA CARRILLO
07/30 - STATE OF THE CITY

About Yvette Holmes

Yvette Holmes

CEO of Southeast Raleigh Promise - Raleigh, NC

Yvette’s work involves shaping and leading strategies, attracting and leveraging investment, building relationships with residents and the community, and cultivating cross-sector partnerships to improve the quality of life and create opportunities for Southeast Raleigh residents, small businesses and non-profits. As a thoughtful leader, Yvette has over 30 years of experience as a nonprofit administrator, fund raiser, and public and civic engagement specialist.

As a resident of Southeast Raleigh for over 20 years, Yvette has been instrumental in providing leadership and technical support in the start-up and growth of small non-profits and community-based coalitions focused on improving neighborhoods and addressing the needs of residents. Yvette cares deeply about issues and inequities impacting residents of Southeast Raleigh and views SERP as the conduit through which impactful solutions can be identified and implemented.

07/31 - LOCAL MATTERS PANEL

About Local Matters Panel

Carmen Cauthen - Historian, Author of Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh 

Bynum Walter - Senior Planner - City of Raleigh 

Chuck Flink – NCSU, Director of the Initiative for Community Growth and Development 

James Montague - President of F7 International Development 

Reggie Edwards - Executive Director of The Encouraging Place

08/02 - PHILIP KAFKA

About Philip Kafka

Philip Kafka

President of Prince Concepts – Detroit MI

Kafka began purchasing real estate in Detroit in late 2012, and finally sold his company in New York in August of 2015. Since then, Kafka has been developing Core City. 

Kafka’s first ground-up development project, True North, was named 2017’s Multi-Family development of the year by Architects Newspaper, was a winner of a Progressive Architecture award, and was one of six finalists for the prestigious Mies Crown Hall America’s prize; it was one of just two finalists from the USA, the other being the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History Washington D.C. 

Kafka also serves on the board of MoCAD in Detroit, and has frequently been a guest critic and lecturer in the architecture departments at the: Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Fay Jones School at the University of Arkansas, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, University of Michigan, and Wayne State University.

08/03 - REBECCA POPOWSKY

About Rebecca Popowsky

Rebecca Popowsky

RLA, SITES AP – Research Associate at Olin Studio – Philadelphia PA

She has been a practicing landscape architect with the OLIN Partnership since 2009, where she has contributed to a wide-range of the studio’s project work. Projects include the design and construction of Canal Park in Washington, DC, Dilworth Park in Philadelphia, and collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers on Potomac Park Levee on the National Mall to restore the FEMA floodplain. Prior to joining OLIN, Rebecca worked as an architectural designer in Florence, Italy, as a timber-frame home builder in Vermont and as a professional trail builder with the Adirondack Mountain Club.  Rebecca earned dual master’s degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Urban Studies from Yale University and participated in an Education Abroad Program in Italy through Syracuse University.

08/04 - CORY HENRY

About Cory Henry

Cory Henry

Principal of Atelier Cory Henry – Los Angeles, CA

Cory Henry is the principal of the award-winning Los Angeles based namesake Atelier, Atelier Cory Henry. Cory Henry’s approach to design integrates research and socially conscious ideals to create poetic contextually driven design solutions. His work ranges in scale and types, with projects spanning several continents. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (UK), has been recognized by NCARB as an emerging force in the field, and won the US National Emerging Architect OnOlive contemporary housing competition. Cory is also accomplished in academia, having recently been twice named KEA Distinguished Professor by the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Prior to the GSD, he has taught at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Syracuse University, the University of Maryland, Penn State University, and the University of Southern California. He earned a Master of Architecture from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Drexel University.

08/07 - ADAM RUFFIN

About Adam Ruffin

Adam Ruffin

Partner at ARCHITECTUREFIRM – Brooklyn, NY; Richmond, VA

Adam studied architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Virginia, receiving a Master of Architecture in 2002. For 15 years he worked with Thomas Phifer and Partners in New York City rising to the role of Associate Director. As one of the longest tenured members of that team, he managed and developed some of the firm's most important cultural and residential projects, including the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Cine Colombia Headquarters in Bogota, Colombia, the Chelsea Arts Studio in New York City, the Dallas Residence and Gallery in Dallas, Texas, the Fishers Island House on Fishers Island, New York, and the United States Courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah. Many of these projects garnered AIA National Honor and Merit Awards as well as international recognition for the office. Adam joined ARCHITECTUREFIRM in 2017 and manages the Brooklyn office, overseeing projects at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of Ice Cream, multi-family projects in Washington DC and Virginia, and private residences in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Montauk. Adam is a member of the Dean's Advisory Board at the University of Virginia School of Architecture and he is a licensed architect in the state of New York, the state of Georgia, and Washington, DC.

08/08 - GABRIELA CARRILLO

About Gabriela Carrillo

Gabriela Carrillo

Partner at c733, Taller Gabriela Carrillo – Mexico City, MX

Gabriela Carrillo is a Mexican architect who founded her own office, Taller Gabriela Carrillo. Carrillo is also a founding member of the architectural design collective C733. She graduated from Faculty of National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In 2012, she partnered with Mauricio Rocha and his firm Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo. She has presented lectures and has led workshops at universities in Mexico, the United States, and South America. Her work has been published nationally and internationally.


In 2017, Carrillo was named Architect of the Year by Architectural Review and the Architects' Journal's Women in Architecture Awards.

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