John Conrad Kohlhas AIA

After retiring as Director of Operations for an international design firm, John is focusing primarily on the design of residential projects along with select consulting roles in other areas of design expertise including academics and life-sciences.  

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John holds a bachelor of architecture degree from Syracuse University and is licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.  John started practice in 1980 with the firm Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham (GBQC), which had earned the AIA National Firm of the Year award the year before.  After 26 years of experience across a wide spectrum of project types, as president of the firm John merged it with a growing practice based in Boston to establish Cubellis-gbqc and he took the helm its academic practice nationally.  In 2009 as a result of the financial crisis, the firm's Philadelphia-based partners spun off to become Environetics Design which grew from 28 to 50 within five years.  In 2016 the firm was acquired by international architectural and engineering firm NORR, where John helped to grow the Philadelphia office to 80 people working across multiple market sectors including residential, commercial, industrial, education, healthcare and life sciences.

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In addition to his work at the firm, John became the professional development chair for the mid-Atlantic council of Society of College and University Planners, led the fire restoration of Trinity Memorial Church, became the first president of the non-profit Trinity Center for Urban Life, and taught a design studio at Jefferson University's school of architecture.  

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Throughout this broad career, John almost always retained one or two residential clients enjoying the opportunity to become immersed with them in the highly personal work of designing custom homes, additions and renovations.  He is proud of the fact that he has been asked to do multiple projects for many of his clients and has been recommended repeatedly by clients and contractor's he's worked with.