Happy Happy Pi Day – Happy Happy Pi Day

Another successful HOK Structure’s Pi day has come and nearly gone as I write this.  As always it was an enjoyable event for all; we brought pie, we ate pie, we recited pi.    This was the St. Louis Structural Engineering group’s sixth annual event to celebrate the mathematical constant pi, an irrational and transcendental number represented by the Greek letter “π”.

To celebrate, we hosted an event inviting colleagues in our office to bring in a pie and participate in a “Best In Show” pie contest (and of course to eat pie) in addition to hosting the “most recited digits of pi” contest.  Winners were awarded with …

Happy Holidays from St. Louis HOK Structures group! May your New Year be joyful and structurally sound!

T’was a warm winter day in Houston when the 4th Annual Gingerbread Build-Off took place in Hermann Square. HOK’s team built a holiday version of James Turrell’s Skyspace that was made of green cake covered in parsley, white chocolate, ginger bread, and various candies.

Thanks to our builders and strategists:

Builders:
Jasmine Brown, Deinte Dan-Princewill, Alex Lara and Leming Yang.

Candy Strategists: Lauren Flemister, Ashley Craig and Sara Bullington

…and those who came to support and vote!

Follow the link below to explore more on the built pavilion:

http://www.architectmagazine.com/lighting/a-skyspace-in-houston.aspx

A Skyspace in Houston – Lighting – Architect Magazine Page 1 of 3

James Turrell’s latest project is an architectural pavilion that frames an artwork—and an artwork that accomplishes an …

2012 Diversity Week in St. Louis brought some fun activities to the staff, but the one I was (and still am) most excited about is the Diversity Quilt. 

The quilt, a scheme brought to life by Penny Malina, represents the “joining of small pieces of fabric as a whole allowing us to see how each individual square is integral to the completed quilt”.  The drive for squares began in July.  The Interiors group donated old (discontinued) fabric samples, new muslin squares were cut, and notions were provided.  It’s been wonderful to see …

Is it really possible that this is the FOURTH annual Design by Designers at HOK Washington, DC? Organized and hosted by fabulous Graphic Design Principal and Guru Jim Doussard (famous for the HOK monograph and salad bar potlucks, among other achievements), Design by Designers is an opportunity for HOK’s talented team to share our outside-the-office design pursuits over a frosty beverage and tasty snacks.

As you might expect, there were quite a few drawings and paintings, a few home improvements, but also a couple of “outside the box” design pursuits. Colin Benson, visualization specialist by trade, industrial designer by education, and bicycle-restorer by night brought in two amazing restored bicycles, including a bicycle built for …

Diversity is an important role in each person’s life.  We understand diversity from things as simple as trying a new food, designing buildings in new ways, and knowing people who differ from ourselves.  Simply put, without diversity, life would not be like a box of chocolates (and really, who wants that).

HOK is certianly the type of firm the appreciates the dedication that people make to HOK, which is in fact what makes HOK the great organiztion that it is.  It is important to recognize the diversity of each of these individuals that make up the greater part of HOK.  To celebrate and enhance our diversity, as well as to show appreciation for …

I think this post’s title has quite a few meanings. It says that two members of the HOK buildingSMART team visited Oslo, Norway recently. It also says that there was a buildingSMART convention happening there that same week. And it also indicates the general state of the construction industry in the region – they are definitely building SMART in Norway!

Greg Schleusner and I were invited to visit Oslo by our new strategic software partners – dRofus. Back in December 2011, it was announced that HOK and dRofus entered a 3-year enterprise license agreement to use their client-server database solution for integrated program management on a majority of HOK’s building projects. While members of the dRofus team have …

  Thanks to the awesome folks over at ArchDaily, there are some more shots of the !melk/HOK/UrbanLab submission to the Navy Pier Competition.

We’ve mentioned it on here before, and shown you the video, but we also wanted to point out that the full public presentation video is up for your viewing pleasure!

We’re just over 48 hours from kickoff, and if this picture from the NFL Super Bowl blog is any indication, Indianapolis is ready for Super Bowl XLVI:

As we discussed earlier in the week, the HOK-designed Indianapolis International Airport is getting rave reviews from some of the 40,000+ extra passengers flying through it this week. We’re thrilled to hear about how Indianapolis leaders are using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to transform the city, and we’re especially excited that the HOK-designed JW Marriott Indianapolis is the official media headquarters for Super Bowl XLVI.

Here’s what it looks like in the off-season:

…

You may have heard by now that for the past 8 weeks we’ve been busy over here at HOK preparing for the Pierscape at Navy Pier Design Competition. Joined by collaborating firms !melk  and UrbanLab, the design was finally presented to the public on Tuesday. 

The team included !melk., Urban Lab, Terry Guen Design Associates, Thirst, Zoe Ryan, Conservation Design Forum, HR&A Advisors, Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Sam Schwartz Engineering, Leni Schwendinger LIGHT projects, CMS Fountain Consultants, and Karin Bacon Enterprises.

We always see (and drool over) these competition entries, but very rarely do you get to peel back the covers and see what really goes into the preparation of these submissions, so we thought we’d give …

Talk about ending the year on a high note!

2011 has been a great year for HOK’s competitive spirit – what with a major competition win in the Metropolis Net Zero competition followed by our latest award:

A Jury Recognition Award for HOK San Francisco’s entry to the Architecture at Zero International Competition, sponsored by the AIA San Francisco and PG&E!

HOK’s Entry Board for the Architecture at Zero Competition (Click to enlarge)

The project brief was to create a mixed-use building or set of buildings that includes housing, retail space and a new library branch on an industrial urban infill site in Emeryville, California. More importantly, the crux of the competition was the mandate that the …

Let it never be said that San Francisco HOK-ers don’t know how to have a good time. Take a look at the lineup of events from this fall – and you’ll agree that we can party like rockstars!

October: Wellness Fair: We kicked off the festivities this fall with a health fair to make sure we were all medically certified to have a good time. Practitioners from the Pure Wellness Intl Team, Kaiser and Concentra were at hand to answer questions, along with posture and stress screening, chiropractic advice and healthy snack samples.

October: Pumpkin Carving Contest: HOK SF then flexed its creative muscles with a pumpkin carving contest. Look below for the winners!

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Yann Weymouth has collaborated with colleagues in HOK’s Toronto office on the design of 77 Charles West, Aspen Ridge Home’s high-end condominium development near the University of Toronto. Check out this UrbanToronto photo essay of the construction going in the 16-story tower. From the story:

“The building has garnered much attention on UrbanToronto for its high quality curtain wall glazing. Green glass, usually a result of high iron oxide content, is not normally appreciated around here, but the deliberate colouration of the glass and related spandrel strips here has received nothing but rave reviews: this is green done right.”
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We’re thrilled that Sarah Weissman, architect and fearless leader of HOK IMPACT, is guest blogging about Project Haiti for Metropolis magazine’s Point of View blog. You can click here to read the first entry and check out her latest post below:

Sarah and a young boy at Fondation Enfant Jesus in Port au Prince (photo was taken by one of the children who discovered a new love for playing with Sarah’s camera)

When HOK was asked to partner with the USGBC on Project Haiti, a children’s center in Port au Prince, we decided immediately that the most appropriate approach to the project would require an integrated, multi-disciplinary team. So we assembled …

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Phoenix for IFMA World Workplace 2011. For those of you not intimately familiar with the facility management profession, IFMA is the International Facility Management Association and World Workplace is the organization’s annual conference – typically about 5,000 folks from around the world attend.  IFMA is one of my favorite organizations – lots of really wonderfully nice (and smart, and interesting) people!

This year, Angie Earlywine and I were selected to present a concurrent session: Space Matters – New Ways of Maximizing Space Utilization, and I was selected to present Make the Most of Social Media for Your …

Today and tomorrow, the design world is converging upon the Baltimore Convention Center to share thoughts, best practices, cool products, and swag at NeoCon East! 

This year, I had the great priviledge of presenting with my friend and colleague, the fabulous Claire Whitehill.  Our presentation was focused on workplace benchmarks and best practices, and shared a few case studies of things that were working well. We had a great audience who were happy to participate and offered some great comments and asked some of the tough questions.  Let me know if you’re interested in the presentation – we’d be happy to share!

At 1 pm, one of your favorite bloggers, Sean …

The US Southern Command Headquarters project received a Design Build Excellence Award at the National DBIA Conference last week! 

http://www.dbia.org/about/awards/national/2011projects.htm

U.S. Southcom Headquarters is one of the U.S. military’s ten Major Combatant Commands. It includes a four-story, 440,000-square-foot headquarters building with offices, command suite, computer data center, conference and training rooms and the command center. Additional buildings include the 40,000-square-foot Conference Center of the Americas and the 150,000-square-foot Services building for support functions, child development center, health and medical center, fitness center, warehouse facilities, loading docks and central utility plant.

US Southern Command Headquarters also received an Eagle Award from the Associated Building and Contractors Central Florida group on Saturday evening.

http://www.abccentralflorida.com/

And…

In MarketWatch (a …

Ok, I had to share this article – it completely caught my attention on CNN.com thanks to the headline: Building the brand: 10 great fashion-architecture hook ups. Probably caught yours too, so I don’t feel so badly!

Anyway, the article is actually a pretty cool slideshow of cool design for high-end fashion (Dior, Armani, YSL, Chanel, Hermes, etc.).  Check it out and let me know what you like, dislike (the architecture, not the fashion).

Of course I found out of the passing of Steve Jobs yesterday via social media.  Did anyone find out conventionally?? 

I’ve never been a big Apple person (save the Apple II+ we had when I was a little girl playing “raise the flags”).  My current house is PC + Linux only; we’re Droid phone users.  I do have an iPod, though.  And I love it.  But I  hate iTunes.  And my Droid is a pretty good music player itself.  I refuse to get an iPad since it doesn’t have Swype and getting information onto the stinkin device is a royal pain. 

Regardless of my Apple fan-boy status (or really lack thereof), I do think it …

On Thursday 22nd September, London’s property industry came together to celebrate the inaugural HOK London Annual Party on board HOK Airways.  Having celebrated a number of  successes and project milestones particularly in our Aviation  sector, we chose this theme for our 2011 Annual Party.  On the following evening we opened our doors to the public in celebration of the London Design Festival.

We wanted to celebrate 2011 with clients, partners, consultants supporters and journalists whom we have had the pleasure of working with through this challenging yet rewarding year.

Planning began in June and we made it just in time to register to be part of the London Design Festival. Weekly meetings were …

It’s been a very big summer for Corporate Business Manager, Stacy Sensel.

She’s a HUGE St Louis Cardinals Fan (yay to the cards – this city is on the edge of it’s seat!), she bought a house and installed a pool, and she’s been doing an awful lot of horse showing. 

This last weekend, Stacy was at the US Sport Horse Nationals in Lexington, KY.  She rode a horse named Red, and placed National Top Ten!  The US Sport Horse Nationals represents horses from all over the US and Canada. 

Stacy normally shows her Arabian, Beamer, but was showing a horse qualified by another …

Peace not War! Well in this case, a peaceful war of Post-It art.

As designers we create, live, work, and play in the vertical world of cities so therefore we strive to provide a forum for public communication. More commonly a courtyard, park, transit stop or even the elevator is the venue of communication with total strangers of the city, and in some instances other co-workers.

Currently in metropolises around the world, windows are becoming this platform by being transformed into canvases of 16-bit characters of our childhood heroes and villains. So what’s the message of an urban battlefield created of mere paper images? In the video link below it is described as an opportunity for the …

I started working for HOK on 14th February 2005 (a rather memorable date!), but as some of you already know, tomorrow, 30th September is my last day. I will be leaving to go client-side for the UK government as Head of Regional Strategy for the Government Property Unit (GPU), managing government all property outside London. It is an exciting and challenging role which will encompass estate management, consolidation and review of a large number of assets.

During my time here I have been fortunate to work with many incredible, talented and inspiring people – I will miss you all and hope that you will stay in touch.

I could go on and say …

Thanks to HOK Legal Contract Coordinator Dianne Brown for this guest blog post. Last month, Dianne, Landscape Architect Matt Snelling and Software Developer Nag Nagulapati volunteered in the local USGBC chapter’s effort to assist with tornado clean-up in Joplin, Mo. Read on for Dianne’s reflections:

On May 22, a tornado steamed through Joplin, Missouri, causing much devastation and 159 deaths. In the spirit of volunteerism, a group from USGBC-Missouri Gateway Chapter and HOK IMPACT St. Louis traveled to Joplin on July 23-24 to volunteer in the Disaster/Relief Cleanup.

Volunteers from USGBC-Missouri Gateway Chapter and HOK, including Nag (front, in polo shirt), Dianne (front, wearing white t-shirt and black ball cap) and Matt (back, …

“I love to design complex buildings with a public role, and try to make them look simple,” says Yann Weymouth, design director for HOK Florida.

Yann Weymouth (center) touring the Salvador Dalí Museum

Achieving this goal in the St. Petersburg, Fla., Salvador Dalí Museum was no small task. In this truly unique project, Yann and his team created a masterpiece that, while structurally complex, honored the intrigue and elegance of Dalí’s work.

This month, Structural Engineer took an in-depth look at the engineering that makes this structure work. From the iconic glass “Enigma” on the exterior to the 58-foot concrete helix inside to the attention paid to protecting Dalí’s masterworks in a …

For last month’s “Around the World in 30 Days” walking challenge, our Denver team set the bar pretty high… 14,000 feet high, that is. Thanks to Landscape Architectural Technician Brett Desmarais for sending these pictures our way:

Brett writes:

One of the highlights of Wellness Month for the Denver office was a hike up Mt. Bierstadt, one of Colorado’s “14ers.” Standing at 14,065 feet, Mt. Bierstadt is located in the Front Range region of the Rocky Mountains.  Hikers included David Amalong, Robb Berg, Brett Desmarais, Ann Althoff, Molly Hanlin and Max (Molly’s Golden Retriever).  It was a fantastic day with perfect weather! 

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Okay, so I was trying to be alliterative… it’s not really a mockup, it’s the real thing!  The first sign to attach to the Freno Raingarden System arrived today and will soon be installed at the pilot project here in downtown St Louis.  This sign will help people to know what’s going on, the benefits of urban rain gardens, and to learn more about the system itself.  Nice job, Matt, Jim, and Paul!

Also, we got to admire the sign against the backdrop of some wonderful jazz music in the center space, courtesy of Jazz St Louis.  The three student musicians were in as a part of …

The Metropolis Next Generation entry has garnered another award: 2011 AIA-DC Unbuilt Award.  The 2011 Washington UNBUILT Awards Program recognizes excellence in projects that to date remain unbuilt – theoretical and unbuilt commissioned projects.  Congratulations again to the HOK / Vanderweil Design Team!

Integral to the development of this project was a balance between energy conservation measures and design aesthetics.  While this goal may seem evident, available technologies create a unique challenge for designers to marry these two principles.  It took great strides to move from research into development, and formalize gestures into 3D Vizualizations that were recently featured at Design DC, where the AIA-DC Unbuilt Awards were announced.

The final renderings are …

These images say it all – there are some very creative people at HOK!

 Kim Frey, vice president and business manager has been with the firm for 30 years this month – what a huge accomplishment!  The traditional 30th anniversary gift is Pearls but we decided to surprise her with aluminum, A LOT OF ALUMINUM! Besides, it’s much more shiny, flexible, affordable, and best of all- Recyclable!!!

Kim “sincerely wants to thank each of you for the pleasure of being part of this great group of professional for all these years, …