When he was six years old, Todd Bertsch, AIA, moved with his family to Atlanta from Pocatello, Idaho. Through what he calls “serendipity,” Todd never left. He earned his architecture degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has spent his entire professional career in Atlanta. In 2008, he joined HOK as design director in our Atlanta office.
Todd and his wife, also an architect, live with their 11-year-old daughter in a house they designed together near Piedmont Park in Atlanta’s vibrant Virginia Highland neighborhood.
“I have seen Atlanta undergo a tremendous transformation over the past 30 years,” says Todd. “It is still young compared to Paris or …
Chirag Mistry has been at HOK for eight years and is one of our leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) experts, focusing primarily on lab and research facility design and development in HOK’s Science + Technology practice. In addition to working on projects for clients, he spends a lot of his time developing HOK’s overall BIM standards for his practice group.
So often you see the end product of sleek renderings that adapt in seconds even to the most complex program changes. But what you probably don’t know is how all this comes to be. In this interview, Chirag shares the inside scoop on …
HOK is designing Porsche Cars North America’s new headquarters in Atlanta. The project includes a contemporary workplace for up to 400 people, a Technical Service and Training Center, and a Customer and Driver Experience Center with an integrated road handling track. The team is targeting a Silver or higher LEED rating.
“Our design goal was to capture the essence of the Porsche brand and performance,” said Todd Bertsch, director of design at HOK in Atlanta. “We have designed a movement-filled building with the same high-energy feel and performance as Porsche automobiles.”
“Our vision for our new U.S. corporate home is to create a bold and energizing environment where the physical elements are as memorable …
On your lunch today, check out this talk from Michael Ouweleen from Cartoon Network. Hilarious guy with a lot of great things to say about creativity (without boring you).
Next week is Modern Atlanta‘s ‘Design Week’ here in the ATL and as a part of that I’ve been asked to co-curate the ‘Design is Material’ exhibition on innovative products and materials in our industry. I’ve think I’ve found some amazing things from Plexwood, Promesh, FibreC and 3M to name a few, but I’d like to crowdsource a little bit and see what you think.
What materials have you seen, or which ones would you add? Want to share?! Leave a comment! I’ll make sure to reference your name on the information tag as the submitter!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the states and I’m already hungry!! As I pass the time and try not to eat all the good stuff saved for tomorrow’s celebration, I’ll share some of our great recent W+P posts.
Chicago Market Forecast – Another HOK superstar shares his thoughts not only on our blogs, but also in industry publications. Mike M’s post shares his publication for the Builder’s Association.
Fresh, At Work - In keeping with the theme of food and being hungry, Susan shares information about Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs).
While Atlanta isn’t my hometown, it unexpectedly and quickly has become a city that I love. Part of my satisfaction is attributed to my in-town lifestyle. I live a couple of miles from our downtown office and can walk to numerous parks, restaurants, shops, and other convenience retail in my neighborhood.
Atlanta, like most cities, industries, and citizens was not immune to the Great Recession. The larger question for some time now has been how does one emerge?
Unboundary really out-did themselves this time with hosting TEDx in Atlanta. I want you guys to chime in on this one, because there is some controversial stuff here and the dialogue is GOOD!
Re:learn was a huge success and I think the reason is that there is so much passion about creating situations and environments that foster relationships for social good. Whether that be physical environments or virtual environments technology and humanity are coalescing.
Take these two speakers for example. Gever Tulley and Jane McGonigal. Both address our need for solving the fundamental problem of FUN in solving problems. I cant really say it much better than they have, so I’ll defer to their videos for your viewing and …
In another TEDx Atlanta installment, Melissa Kushner (yes, brilliant sister of Marc Kushner, Co-Founder of Architizer) talks about her lessons learned running and operating her organization Goods 4 Good that she started after a few trips to Malawi while with the U.N.. Goods 4 Good is an organization taking surplus’s from US organizations and supplying resources to children less fortunate in developing countries.
However, this talk isn’t entirely about Goods 4 Good, instead it’s about Melissa’s experiences in what she calls ‘5 Steps to International Development’. I think there’s a lot to be learned from these 5 steps even beyond international development and even into the work of our own lives. The 5 …
I’ve had the wonderful privilege of watching Ellen give this talk before about the concept, but in a bit more detail than 20 minutes will provide. Although, considering the time allotted, I thought she got out a lot of great data outlining the reasons why as well as a few examples of other places where this has been a successful endeavor making the …
The third TEDx in Atlanta is coming soon and I’ve got some heavy s%#@ to knock out in some posts before then so I’m going to cut right to it this week.
At the last TEDx Atlanta, titled Re:Purpose, there was much-ado about the interpretations of what repurposing really means. Some of it very literal and some not-so-literal. Matthias’ talk above is the latter.
You may have heard of a little thing called Architizer. it’s a social media site for architects and designers and it’s the brainchild of Matthias and Marc Kushner. That’s the most famous bit of their work right now, but the not so famous but arguably most interesting is their project work at the collaborative studio …
TEDx Atlanta never seems to fall short of their performers at the two events so far. Last time I wrote about how my socks were blown away by Eric Lewis and thought there was no way the guys at Unboundary could come up with someone to rival him. However, I was proved wrong. For the second installment of TEDx Atlanta, Re:Purpose, I was blown away yet again by the powerful and seductive cello of Zoe Keating.
Zoe has an amazing background story, which involves her being a classically trained cellist at the age of 8 before entering a ‘phase’ of her life where she becomes a software engineer and information architect during the dot-com boom.
Tonight I’m heading down to Miami to check out the work on the headquarters we have designed for Bacardi USA. I’m excited to see how construction is wrapping up and hopefully I can post more about it soon!
The project however is not what this post is about. This post is about life in the airport. Usually I am depressed by the chains of restaurants and magazine shops scattered about, but tonight I’m having a blast at a place located on terminal B called ‘cafe intermezzo’. Of the 6 terminals at Hartsfield Jackson airport, I’m not sure that I’ve ever flown out of B, but from now on I’ll stop here in every flight out of town and have a beer …
I met Abbey on my first day at HOK. She sat across the [low] wall from me and…had just a few months earlier swiped the job I’d been coveting for about a year! Turns out, Abbey was a much better candidate for that particular position and I ended up in a position that was perfect for me. Gold star to HOK! Anyway, you should know that Abbey’s a superstar urban planner for the HOK Planning Group. Not too long ago, she and her hubby abandoned DC for her home state of Texas A fantastic mom to her newborn baby (and also her not-so-newborn kitty), and all around great person, Abbey is a fabulous, funny, brilliant colleague – the DC crew misses her tremendously …
I’ll be honest, I was a bit intimidated by Rosa when I first met her. She’s only a few years my senior, but she has the confidence (and the goods to back it up) of someone with several times her experience. Plus, she hangs out with the cool people. Over the years, I’ve learned that Rosa is not only extremely talented and motivated; she’s nice, funny, and supremely helpful too. I had a great time with our questions session (and every time we work together) – hope you enjoy Rosa as much as I do:
I have been at HOK for slightly over 12 years. HOK has been a big part of my life …
This is a little advertising that IBM does at the end of some of the sponsored TED talks, but it’s absolutely inspring on a number of different levels.
1. The Big Idea: I’ll start of with the quote in the beginning. “US traffic accounts for 45% of the worlds air pollution.” That in itself is staggering, but not surprising. The big idea behind IBM’s technology is that they have developed a way to charge (toll-booth free & convenient for the driver) a “congestion charge” for Stockholm, Sweden. This is to ensure that those who drive are paying for the convenience (and pollution) that they account for. It’s like sub-metering energy or water consumption. Once people realize that others aren’t …
TED. That’s all that needs to be said. It’s been such a big part of my personal development over the last few years and it’s something that has grown to be so beloved for its accessible brilliance that it’s permeated even the most prominent of new sources today including all over CNN. (it’s about time “good” became mainstream)
Well a lesser known “baby TED” is home right here in my own backyard, and its called TEDx Atlanta. Some of you may have read my earlier posts about the September TEDx, interviews and more, and for others I hope you will read them soon. Even if you don’t really read …
Another installment in our series about the inspiring women of HOK (not to say that our men aren’t inspiring, too!): Meet Jeannette Thompson, Business Communications Specialist in the HOK Planning Group. While Jeannette calls St. Louis her home, she supports the HOK network throughout the world. You also know her as one of the Life@HOKblogstarteam and future American Idol judge! Jeannette is a true superstar and I hope you enjoy getting to know her a bit better.
Q: What’s a typical day in the life of Jeannette Thompson?
A typical day involves a morning routine that is anything but typical, …
Megan Holder is my cohort. That’s right. We have a gang.
Okay, so it’s not quite a gang, but we do have long phone conversations and plans to take over the world. (Wow, guess I’m a little prone to exaggeration…)
Megan is the life of every situation – her love for life just bubbles out without her even knowing. She has been with the HOK Planning Group for five years. She resides in the Atlanta office, where she is constantly being recruited for extra-curricular-work-activities, but is a Texas girl at heart.
There are so many great things about Megan (including the fact that her traditionally-stoic work photo features some outrageously large earrings) but there’s one …
Most (probably all) of you have heard of Gary Hustwit’s films Helvetica and Objectified. Well this post is merely to inform you that Objectified is now out for purchase on iTunes!! Go buy it, your life will thank you. Ps- During the Atlanta screening of this film, Gary was here and mentioned that he is working on another design documentary already, but didnt say what about, or which industry. What will it be? Fashion? Interiors? Architecture?
About a year ago, I gave you an update of what was going on in my work life. Looking back over the last year of Life@HOK, I thought it might be fun to revisit that post,and let you know what’s going on now! You’ll see from the list below that some things have stayed the same, but lots of cool new things have come up too!
Revisiting old news:
GSA Unit Cost Study: just about wrapped up!
U.S. Capitol Complex Master Plan (still going, and I still can’t tell you more or I’d have to shoot you)
Who needs an excuse to go outside and polish up on some drawing skillz? I do, and you do too.
When living in New York, I used to do this all the time. Just spend hours upon hours at the MET, the Museum of Natural History, and MoMA just drawing anything around me. Sometimes they were the objects on display, but mostly they were the people visting themselves. I remember it was a time when you catch people at their most curious, facinated, bewildered, and contemplative.
Well Atlantans, on Saturday you get your chance to go out and simply be and draw. I recently spoke with Suzanne McDermott, …
As some of you have read in an earlier post, I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the local TED event here in Atlanta. Hosted and curated by Unboundary, the TEDx Atlanta talks were a great way to, like most TED talks do, leave you thinking for days upon end, playing in the ‘ether’ of ideas. So much so that in fact it has been two weeks since the event and I’m just now getting around to understand what I heard and writing about it in a way that readers can get what I’m talking about.
I’ll start a series of posts (starting with this one) that will talk about each of the …
I got a chance to sit down with the Tod Martin, CEO of Unboundary in Atlanta and talk about the upcoming TEDx Talks that they are hosting. Watch as Tod talks about when he started attending TED, where and when TEDx Atlanta will take place, who the speakers are, and more! A full list of TEDx Atlanta speakers can be found HERE.
Also, a big shout-out to Kyle Jones and all of the other cool-cats at Unboundary for the interview and the tour!
While Gensler, arguably, was more talented at playing video games. Two (normally quiet) HOK architects brought the real rock. Not just the notes, but the NOISE!! Check out the photos and video of our final song “SABATOGE’! It pretty much speaks for itself.
So you all might have read my earlier post of excitement about the localities of the TED talks (called TEDx) and now I have a bit more details for the Atlanta event which is just a couple months away. (September 15th, 2009)
For all you hipsters keen on TED lectures and who can’t get enough of the erratic addition to knowledge, may I suggest viewing one NEAR YOU!
That’s right folks, TED has been piloting these in other cities such as Tokyo with much success and now they are planned for tons of cities around the world!
As most of you know, if you’ve been reading lately, that HOK all across North America as been riding bikes to work for the month of May. A special congratulations goes out to the Atlanta team (sorry to be bias). Check our more from the stats below!! Crazy awesome work everyone!
Next week is 
Megan Holder is my cohort. That’s right. We have a 
