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Who

Farmerie is a founder of downtown restaurant design firm AvroKO.

Backstory

Pittsburgh native Farmerie met his business partner, Greg Bradshaw, when they were both architecture students at Carnegie Mellon. In 2000, the duo merged their tiny architecture firm Avro with a small graphic design business founded by two other college friends—Kristina O'Neal and William Harris—called KO Media. The result: AvroKO.

The team gained attention shortly thereafter when Adam's chef brother, Brad Farmerie, encouraged them to lend their design sensibility to a new restaurant. The result was Australian fusion spot Public in Nolita, in which all four AvroKO partners (along with Dan Rafalin, who manages the restaurant day-to-day) have a stake. Public's well-executed industrial-chic aesthetic quickly turned AvroKO into one of most talked-about young design firms, and led to commissions to design Stanton Social, Odea, Sapa, Alan Stillman's Quality Meats and Park Avenue Café, and Bob Giraldi's E.U. in the East Village.

Of note

Although the hype has dimmed a bit since 2004, the 30-employee operation remains busy. They've taken their design aesthetic to Vegas, crafting the interior of Social House, the splashy restaurant located in the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, and Company, an "American bistro" owned by Pure Management (which introduced the world to the Pussycat Dolls Lounge). AvroKO has also expanded into hotels (a W in Philadelphia), retail (the toy store Kid Robot), furniture (the Transport Series), started an apartment design venture called smart.space, and published a book, 2007's Best Ugly: And Other Design Principles for the Unusual, Offbeat, and Awkwardly Beautiful. Their nightlife portfolio has expanded as well: In early 2007, they appended a wine bar to Public called the Monday Room.

Habitat

Farmerie lives on First Avenue in the East Village.