I recently presented at and co-hosted a BIMForum event in Miami. The BIMForum is an interest group of the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America with which the AIA also collaborates. Twice a year, the BIMForum conducts events that are based on a specific theme. The Spring 2013 theme was “The Human Side of BIM” in which all presentations focused on topics such as training, change management, and firm culture.
An interesting aspect of this conference was that ALL presentations were delivered in pecha kucha (or 20×20) style! This means that we had to share our content with 20 slides, 20 seconds each, for a total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Sounds crazy, right? The …
HOK has been ranked as the #1 BIM Architecture firm by Building Design + Construction, but what does it take to achieve such wide adoption of new processes and technology? Change management is a paramount concern when a large, multinational firm undergoes such a radical transformation. Back in 2009, our firm decided to officially retire the term “CAD” and proclaimed November 5 as HOK’s BIM Day. For historical reference, Guy Fawkes Day was key to selecting this date.
On the fourth anniversary of our BIM Day, we are embarking on another leg of our journey to buildingSMART. As BIM has become synonymous with a specific software tool (like Revit), we recognize the need to expand …
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 BIM leaders have been active on the conference circuit lately – spreading the word and sharing our take on innovative design and delivery processes. I attended my 7th BIMForum event in San Antonio, Texas earlier this month. This conference – organized by the Associated General Contractors of America – keeps getting better and better. Read my review on All Things BIM.
David Light, William Lopez Campo, Cara Di Pierro, and Joyce Chan from our London office participated in a popular event in the UK called BIMShow Live. Here’s a synopsis from David…
“Building information modeling is finally starting to get some good traction in the UK; however, BIM delivery has remained marginal & typically confined to large projects such …
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 …
It was an honor to organize the 2nd Annual HOK BIM Awards, following in the footsteps of Lee Miller who organized the inaugural event in 2010. The internal awards – affectionately known as “BIMies” – are meant to spur creativity and innovation in the processes we utilize to generate great design. This year we had 22 entries from 19 different project teams representing 10 of our global offices. Out of the 22 entrants, 12 projects were selected as finalists by the Firmwide BIM Leadership team. Each finalist team had the opportunity to present via WebEx for 15 minutes.
The final presentations were reviewed by a panel of industry experts: Lachmi Khemlani, PhD – founder and editor of AECBytes.com; Calvin …
A recent monthly meeting of the NYC Revit Users Group was a joint event with the NYC Metro BIM Group and featured a panel discussion about the use of BIM and Integrated Project Delivery for the relocation of HOK’s New York City office. We had a fantastic turnout and many fantastic questions to feed the dialogue. We chose a few key representatives of the project team as follows:
Architect/Owner – HOK; Jason Zoss
Engineer – Flack + Kurtz; Cheryl Massie, Frank Padilla and John Gerney
I was inspired this weekend by a quote by Jacob Bronowski from his 1973 documentary series, The Ascent of Man:
“Discovery is a double relation of analysis and synthesis together. As an analysis, it probes for what is there. But then as a synthesis, it puts the parts together in a form in which the creative mind transcends the bare limits, the bare skeleton that nature provides.” – Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man: The Grain in the Stone
While preparing a presentation on the topic of BIM’s influence over the early design process, it occurred to me that BIM can be thought of to create a sort of resonance between analysis and …
Here was a quick little vid from Disney Imagineering touting Building Information Models and onsite collaboration in the construction process. It’s something we’ve been really good at for a long time at HOK, but the use of the iPad onsite for quick video meetings or collaborations was the first I’ve heard of being supported in the process. I know here we’ve had lots of hope for more of this type of close collaboration with technology in the field!
Congratulations to the team at HOK in Washington DC for winning a 2011 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice BIM Award! Their submission for the Consolidated Forensic Laboratory earned them a citation in the category of “BIM Excellence.”
The AIA TAP BIM Awards competition has been an annual event since 2005 that originally focused on drawing automation to improve coordination, speed and accuracy. In 2011, the jury evaluated projects on the merits of using BIM to support sustainable design solutions and proactive project management. The chair of the AIA TAP Knowledge Community - Calvin Kam, AIA – states: “the goal is to push the field from representation to integration, simulation, automation, and optimization.”
I just returned from a trip to the beautiful Santiago, Chile where I gave a series of presentations about building information modeling (BIM). Representatives from the Chilean Chamber of Construction (Camara Chilena de la Construccion) had visited the United States in October 2010 to learn about what was happening with design and construction technology in North America. They visited several firms, one of which was HOK in New York. I shared with them our passion for the tools and process innovation we refer to as buildingSMART. They were so thrilled with our presentation that they asked me to visit their country to share this information and expand upon my …
I’ve had the great fortune to spend the last 12 years working with the man, the myth, the legend – Carl Galioto, FAIA. We spent 10 years together at SOM in New York working on such inspiring projects as Moynihan Station, Continental Terminal at Newark Airport and One World Trade Center. When I decided to further pursue CAD and BIM research and implementation, Carl was a staunch supporter of my efforts. Now with HOK, he continues this passion for not only the built environment, but the process by which it is designed and delivered. I don’t think I’d have the same success without the pleasure of having him as a mentor….
While I’m not necessarily mocking either of those, neither are good examples of data that I’d want to party with. However, it’s these mind-numbing misinterpretations of what is potentially an exciting way to look at our society, the things we know and the things we create.
On the sustainability front, I’ve written about things like IBM’s ‘Smarter Planet’ campaign and how the notion of public policy and connected information can help us create the types of communities and societies that build better cities and infrastructure. I’ve also written about exciting things …
I was giddy as I sat and flipped through the approximately 1,100 pages of this 5-1/2 pound (2.5 kg) tome. You really don’t get a full appreciation of the overall composition of a book of this size until you have a chance to browse chapter to chapter and soak it all in. Eddy Krygiel, Phil Read and I really poured our hearts and souls into creating what …
These days, it isn’t easy to land a job interview. But Daphne O’Leary recently broke through the clutter to score an important meeting with HOK Alaska HR Manager Rob Pilkington.
See how Daphne fares in this dramatic depiction of her interview experience.
Any similarities to actual individuals – real or imagined – are purely intentional.
Recently our Chicago Healthcare team has been working hard on a really amazing project. Agatha Wieczorek kindly provided this write up:
The Indu and Raj Soin Medical Center will be a new Kettering Health Network facility on a 22 acre site near Dayton, Ohio. This 285,000 SF green field hospital is being designed and constructed with full BIM integration. HOK, along with major consultants including THP (structural) and Heapy (MEP), are working collaboratively in Revit to promote the most productive and streamlined process. The concept of integrated project delivery has been in place from the start of the project, in March/April of last year, and has helped to keep this fast track project moving on schedule. The groundbreaking took place in …
Last week I had the unique opportunity to attend the annual GSA Project Knowledge and Technology Showcase in New Orleans – as an exhibitor. Now, I have attended many industry events as the attendee, but never on the other side of the booth. It was certainly an eye-opening experience to deliver a concise message about HOK’s phenomenal abilities and technology. I was joined by Robin Ellerthorpe and Tim Barry from our Advance Strategies group and we evolved our combined message about BIM in design and construction flowing into integrated workplace management systems.
A really important result of our collaboration and preparation for this event was the creation of the HOK buildingSMART web page. …
In my ‘spare’ time over the past few months I have been co-authoring a book…a really big book! Before I left my previous employer, I was approached by Eddy Krygiel and Phil Read to join forces and completely rewrite Mastering Revit Architecture (published by Wiley). You don’t know what sleep deprivation really is until you try to take on a new job, maintain a family and write (1/3 of) a 1,000 page book. Despite the seemingly endless late nights pounding away at the laptop, I am really excited about the compilation of content. Eddy, Phil and I have seen just about everything in the BIM world over the past 10 years and we poured as much of it as we …
Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA, HOK’s chief executive officer, has a unique vision for the future of the building industry. He believes that today’s buildings cost too much to build, don’t work as well as they could and don’t last long enough. In this five-part video series, Patrick explains why he believes this to be true and offers a solution for creating better buildings at much more affordable prices.
Patrick’s story begins with A Tale of Three Domes, inwhich he chronicles the gradual separation of designer and builder and suggests that Integrated Project Delivery is an idea whose time has come again:
Part 2 –Team Organization: Owner-architect-contractor teams should be reorganized into a single-contract buildingSMART organizational model that mandates teamwork and thus leads
One of the tenets of life at HOK is to be involved in our local communities to the greatest extent possible. Even in the realm of technology, several of our team members are organizers of regional user groups. For example, David Ivey and Andre Baros run two separate groups in Chicago, David Light has organized the London Revit User Group and I am the president of the New York City Revit User Group.
The NYC Revit User Group meets monthly at Pratt’s Manhattan Center on 14th Street – a short stroll from HOK’s office on 18th Street. If you’re not in the New York metropolitan area, don’t fret! We broadcast our meetings via webcast for free!
Yes, it’s 2010, hurray. It’s no mystery that technology is moving quickly these days. This speed of change is causing us to become increasingly excited, yet perhaps a bit more critical of our interactions with computers in our day to day lives and as they relate to our field of architecture and planning. As the rate of computing power increases ever more quickly for a set unit of time, we have grown to expect technology to be able to do anything. This leads us to ask the technological gods such mundane questions as, “why do we need to launch twenty different software applications to realize the design of a building?” …
Last Wednesday was the first time I spoke at a conference – Autodesk University 2009. As I mingled in the crowd I suddenly realized that about one out of 25 of the 6,000+ attendees of the conference came to our 1.5-hour session. This is definitely minor compared to the fascinating keynote speeches highlighting new technologies and industry trends. Besides, there are also over 600 classes, labs, and virtual sessions. Nonetheless I’m glad that we were part of the event, not with the sole intention to promote HOK, but to demonstrate our ability to lead the industry trend in both design and technology.
In celebration of ‘the Fifth of November’, aka ‘BIM Day’ I thought I’d post some ideas of what BIM (Building Information Modeling/Management) might look like in the future. This could be 20 years or 30 years, or never, but we should never stop thinking ‘what if’. In fact, recently I’ve been thinking about the possibilities so much that I’m getting scared that I don’t really know nearly as much as I should.
At any rate, I’m going to post possible future-casting ideas for the way in which we could be using BIM in the future to harness the power of the ‘building in vitro’. Some of these ideas are simply and process software related, but a majority of the focus is …
If you’re in the design industry, I’m sure you’ve heard of BIM. Building Information Modeling is the newest way engineers, architects, and other designers convey the art we produce. At HOK, we take BIM very seriously, setting aside time to make a day of it. November 5 is BIM Day!
HOK is on a journey to buildingSMART. As such we have a large bank of BIM resources (HOK’ers, click here for your support). For those of you outside of HOK (and even those within), here is what Miles Walker (an HOK firm wide BIM leader) had to say about BIM.
On 22nd September my colleague William Lopez Campo participated in the closing event of Autodesk’s BIM Conference (more info) held in Berlin: a two-round 20 minute(each) LIVE “DesignSlam”.
William and three other participants (listed below) are all highly skilled in Autodesk software. They were asked to do design for a Facade (given one of the 4 sides of a building) and a Bridge (given the terrain).
Prof. Martin Schroth – who studied at the University of Applied Sciences Biberach / Riss in Frankfurt and took his Master of Arts and in 2006 he founded his architectural studio in Rothenburg
Moritz Fleischmann - who studied at the RWTH Aachen University, the ETH Zurich and in 2006 was graduated as a qualified engineer. In 2008 he
Since we were just discussing here in Shanghai/Hong Kong how to say BIM in Chinese, I thought I’d make an extra effort on collecting translation of BIM in as many different languages as possible:
Recently I was introduced to two programs, CityEngine and CityScape, through Lee Miller, our firmwide resource for cutting-edge programs (as well as Revit). Developed by programmers who specialize in gaming, these programs can be used to create virtual urban environments instantly. I think the video below provide pretty good explanations for the intent and current abilities of these programs:
CityScape Demo Reel
During demonstrations of these programs, there are always praises mixed with disbelief from the audience. I was quite impressed as well; at that time I was under the time crunch to work towards the midterm review of a 4,500-hectare planning project, and the thought of using either program to quickly generate masses did flash through my mind.
Last week I had the unique opportunity to attend the annual GSA Project Knowledge and Technology Showcase in New Orleans – as an exhibitor. Now, I have attended many industry events as the attendee, but never on the other side of the booth. It was certainly an eye-opening experience to deliver a concise message about HOK’s phenomenal abilities and technology. I was joined by Robin Ellerthorpe and Tim Barry from our 
