Guest post by HOK Seattle’s Todd Buchanan

HOK Seattle’s Todd Buchanan (right) on the streets with fellow commuter Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn

HOK is once again participating in Group Health’s Bike to Work Month and in our second week of the challenge have an impressive 15 teams representing 10 offices, more than 80 participants and have already ridden over 3,300 miles!  Washington DC is once again leading the competition in just about every possible category, followed by St. Louis and Seattle (more stats below). As the competition has ramped up there have been conversations amongst HOK colleagues around the world …

Around this time last year I posted a blog entry about the Mid Market Revitalization Charette that was hosted by HOK San Francisco. In a nutshell, a group of HOK designers teamed up with three other organizations to brainstorm ideas for reviving the neglected Mid-Market District of SF.

One of the ideas revolved around housing a free bike repair station in one of the unused newspaper kiosks at a busy corner in the Mid Market area, in conjunction with a local bike store – Huckleberry Bikes. Well – it took one year, a lot of elbow grease, and perseverance but the Mid-Market Revitalization team is proud to announce the opening of the Mid-Market …

A local paper columnist interviewed HOKer Anna Vasquez, as he explored the option of bike commuting in the Florida summer heat.  The humorous article featured some tips from Anna that I can relate to as a fellow commuter. I especially love the outfit tip – matching shoes are a must, but I must admit I forgot my entire dress once!

Read the article here:

See me rollin’, ridin’ dirty – tbt*.

Last weekend 7 HOKer’s from the Hong Kong office joined 700 other cyclists during the 4th Annual Waterfront Bike Ride for a Pollution Free Hong Kong. The route was approximately 20 miles long mostly along Victoria Harbor to promote and raise awareness to Hong Kong’s Planning Department about the importance of opening up the harbor front to leisure, transport and tourism to encourage a healthy lifestyle. Governments around the world have been investing in cycling as a sustainable mode of transport to improve air quality and to promote active and liveable cities.

Right now there isn’t one bike lane in the heart of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong government has been …

May has arrived, and as you may remember, May is Bike to Work Month.  Just like last year, the Cascade Bicycle Club is sponsoring the 2010 Group Health Commute Challenge.

And HOK is ready to go with already over 100 riders signed up across the firm. We so far have 13 teams across 12 offices, setting us up to outperform ourselves from last year. And that’s no small feat. To refresh your memory, HOK ranked 19th out of 737 organizations in total miles riden (7590 total miles). That’s a lot of fuel saved, calories burned, stories made, lives changed, lessons learned…(read some of last year’s posts!).

If you haven’t yet signed up, it’s not too late! You can register well into the …

YAY!! I finally got some free time to post again!   My friends sent me some pretty amazing graphics that I just had to share!

100 Pixar Characters. I absolutely LOVE Pixar movies! This totally made my day when I saw this.

California Map by Cities. This is missing SOME cities, but still awesome.

Printers are from Hell!!! Read the comic! I guarantee you a laugh.

Tech Support Flow Chart.. an explanation of …

Francisco Silva, CA Architect in Houston, is joining the ranks with Lance Armstrong in the cycling fundraiser against cancer this October! Here is Francisco in his own words:

“Call me crazy but I actually like the pain cycling brings.  The muscle just above your knee cramps up as you get off your saddle to climb.  Hands go numb from holding on to the bar.  Shoulders hurt from riding all day.  Other parts of your body that I do not want to mention hurt and I wonder if they are still there when you finish the ride.   …

I’ve been on and off designing websites as part of my other interests for 6 years now, and a year ago was asked to participate in the Netdiver 10 years bash by Carole Guevin, the editor/founder, as the architectural scout.

Being the industry (both architecture and webdesign), I thought would be interesting to write on architectural website strategies; In what ways do architects distinguish their websites, despite of practical basic items that have to be conveyed, such as News, Projects, Info, Profile and Awards? The review covers unique architectural websites elements, from website mood, rendering techniques, project icons, firm branding to navigation strategies that architects use to state their design voice.

The review was written almost a year ago, I’m sure a lot …

A post from our HOK Chicago bike team captain, Agatha Wieczorek (3rd from the right), who has done a wonderful job of organizing our team:

We have 10 people on our Chicago bike team, some avid cyclists and some new riders who committed to this challenge.

Some people prefer to take streets, and we strategize about which roads have the best bike lanes and least vehicular congestion while the rest of the group enjoys their morning and evening rides along the arguably less death defying lake trail.

It’s a really great way to start and end your day. You’re not trapped on some mass transit system, sitting with strangers risking a swine flu …

As you’ve read, HOK is big into sustainability, and part of our committment is personal – we’ve signed up numerous teams to compete in national bike-to-work month, sponsored by the cascade bicycle club (see Blake’s posts on HOK vs. Copenhagen and Calling all HOKers).  Tim O’Connell cooerced me into signing up using fear of public humiliation as his primary tactic. 

It’s a bit of a long ride for me (13.824 miles each way, according to Gmaps Pedometer) and I’m not much of a cyclist, but what the heck!  My route takes me along Cameron Run in …

They may not look like what you would first imagine. 

They may not look like anything TV makes them out to be. 

But they are . . .

the St. Louis HOK Biker Gang!
 
  

[It may be necessary to say "the St. Louis HOK Biker Gang!" in your best dramatic theatrical voice over; go ahead, try it again, I'll wait]

[l-r: Seth Teel, Jason Kerensky, Paul Wilhelms, Derek Prior, Brett Kostial, Tim Gaidis]

[l-r: Jon Cohen, JoAnn Brookes, Bruce Brunner, Derek Prior, Seth Teel,
Brett Kostial, Matt Snelling, Jason Kerensky, Tim Gaidis, Mark Rosen,
Paul Wilhelms, Steven Crang,

…

Today’s installment of 5 Questions features Tim O’Connell, a boomerang HOK employee. Tim worked at the DC office first in 2000-2001, moved to Boston, and then decided he simply couldn’t stay away and rejoined HOK WDC in 2006. 

Q: What five words describe HOK?

A: Versatile, Exciting, Innovative, Influential, Design and Quality-Focused,

Q: What is your role at HOK?

A: I am a jack of all trades,

…

Janet just wrote a couple days ago about Republic, a bike builder with online customization. Since I know many bikers there are at HOK, I thought this might be a nice entry.

Janet lives in Toronto (and as a former HOK employee, we miss you Janet!), it reminded me of this awesome graphic showing public transportation options for the Toronto office (below) when it won a SMART Environments award in Metropolis.

I’m pretty sure it’s imperative that if you work in the Toronto office, you have to be cool. Since everyone I’ve met from there is …

Todd, I thought you might enjoy this since your last post was about cycling and being cycle-sensitive (like Copenhagen). MIT’s SENSEable City lab has introduced a new initiative for Copenhagen called CopenCycle. The overall goal of the project it seems is to look beyond the questions of ‘what’ we should be doing and saying, ‘now that we are doing it (it being cycling) what are the implications on society and technology’.

‘Smart-Biking’ is about taking our innovations of ‘social technologies’  and advancing them toward a cultural and transportation shift, such as biking in urban environments. The ‘smart tags’ will provide not only a connection to your friends via facebook application to …