Eat the frog first?! That’s what Fast Company Magazine recommends in Kevin Purdy’s article What Successful People Do With the First Hour of Their Day. I am not one to eat the frog first, for sure. My day usually starts about an hour before others show up at the office. This allows me some time to get my list of things to do together, catch up on email and voicemail, and sart checking a few things off my list. I typically accompany this start up time with a cup of “fancy coffee” and some breakfast (usually greek yogurt).mmm…coffee!I save my frog eating for mid-day. I wondered if …
Last night, HOK’s own Sheila Cahnman starred in a panel discussion at the National Building Museum. The panel, sponsored by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, was convened to examine how the building industry is responding to the great recession and how it has and will change after the prolonged economic downturn.
Note: my photos are not very good – the only decent one of Sheila is where she is listening to Cathleen speak! Sorry Sheila!! You were beautiful and brilliant.
First, a bit about the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation: Beverly Willis herself is an architect by training (FAIA) and a founding Trustee of the National Bulding Museum (one of the most beautiful spaces in a city full of beautiful buildings …
An annual program recognizing young design and construction professionals from the Midwest Region has honored an individual from HOK’s Chicago office for two years in a row. Congratulations to Zach Borders, a 33 year old senior urban planner and Associate, for being honored with this designation.
As one of the youngest nominees on the list this year, Zach’s leadership at HOK and his individual accomplishments made him an easy choice for the Top 20. He has worked tirelessly to create great cities and greatness for cities. His determined spirit drove him to encourage his clients to take a more sustainable approach to community …
This week, wearedesignbureau.com, the online blog of Design Bureau Magazine, featured our very own Tom Polucci in a beautifully done piece that goes behind the scenes to learn more about what drives this passionate rising star. Tom is currently group vice president and design director in the Chicago office. But we really know him as the one who brightens up any room he walks into with an amazing affinity for making ideas (like this very blog) come to life. I hope you get the chance to meet him in person (or virtually, as rumor has it he has signed on as a Life at HOK blogger!), but until then, enjoy this article …
Colin Rohlfing, the sustainable design leader in HOK’s Chicago office,participated on the HOK team that recently spent a year in a virtual charrette to design a net zero carbon emissions office building prototype: Net Zero Court in St. Louis.
Here, Colin talks about the reasons it’s important to reduce the carbon emissions of our buildings and what the team led by HOK and The Weidt Group accomplished:
“We learned in the process that a zero emissions building can be surprisingly affordable. We worked with detailed energy models and cost estimates to determine that a 200,000-square-foot office building, just through good passive design and efficient systems selection, can save up to 76 percent of its energy without a large …
After touring HOK’s Chicago office, Metropolis writer Sally Augustin concludes that small can be good. We agree!
More from Metropolis :
“Space is shrinking everywhere. Just as human density is growing on airplanes, workplaces are being designed to be more space efficient, and more affordable. During a recent conversation with Tom Polucci, group vice president and director of interior design at HOK, we took a spin around firm’s Chicago office. Here, I came to the realization that closer quarters need not be unpleasant. ”
Todd Halamka and his team in Chicago have come up with the design of HOK’s first green parking garage. Greenway Self-Park is an 11-story energy-efficient parking garage located in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, at the corner of Clark and Kinzie. The team is pursuing LEED certification for the structure, which was developed by Friedman Partners. Fast Company, World Architecture, Big Think and Inhabitat are among the sites that have featured the project. Here’s a Flickr set of images.
Sustainable features include a cistern rain water collection system and electric car plug-in stations. A 12-paired array of vertical turbines on the southwest …
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 …
In just a tiny fragment of my career at HOK, spanning from September 25th to October 26th, 2009, I have witnessed some of this firm’s best and brightest stars do a whole variety of noteworthy, if not amazing things. I would like to use this bloggertunity to recognize the HOK awesomeness that I’ve personally experienced over the last four weeks…
September 25th: Life at HOK (hoklife.com) is featured in the St. Louis Business Journal. The article, authored by Cynthia Vespereny is entitled, “HOK builds own ‘network’ through company’s blog” and it features many of our corporate communications all-stars as well as a brief mention of one of my …
Early in 2007, architect (and Life at HOK blogger) Colin Rohlfing, sustainable design director in HOK’s Chicago office, accepted a challenge from long-time HOK St. Louis sustainable design principal Bill Odell.
Odell, one of the lead designers on HOK’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) team, asked Rohlfing to organize the sustainable design effort and to manage the LEED coordination and documentation for the 6.5-million-square-foot KAUST campus and town center projects—arguably the most ambitious delivery effort in the firm’s 54-year history (it was designed and built in just three years).
Two-and-a-half years and a lifetime of experiences later, Rohlfing, 28, recently learned that the team’s hard work on KAUST had …
We’re pretty lucky here in Chicago because we have a resident baker. Alyssa Simons, a designer in our interiors group, loves to bake and we love her for it. She regularly brings us tasty treats ranging from “Birthday Marshmallow Crisp Bars” to “Chocolate Haystack Surprises” (my personal favorite). She’s gaining quite the reputation as folks from all corners of the office meander over to where she sits just seconds after the seal on the tupperware is broken. Lucky for me I sit right next to her, first dibs! What’s really cool is that Alyssa blogs about her adventures in baking on her site, Interior Bakerator. Check it out for some great …
On the second day of NeoCon every year HOK-ers from all over the country gather at the Chicago office for a lively breakfast. You need a well rounded meal to prepare yourself for a full day of NeoCon. It’s always fun to catch up with colleagues from around the country to hear what they’re working on and compare notes on the latest and greatest product launches. It’s something I look forward to every year and one of my favorite NeoCon traditions!
Last Thursday, the Chicago office of HOK opened its doors to the professional design community, which included clients, engineers, contractors, brokers, product representatives, present and past colleagues and, of course, our friends. The already warm and inviting space was further transformed into a cool, sophisticated yet festive environment.
I had the pleasure of interviewing and chatting with a few of the participants. Unfortunately, I also had the opportunity of participating in a charity raffle that was won almost exclusively by our St. Louis guests. Regardless, the big winners that night were truly the charity as well as the designers of this wonderful work space.
We will post a series of video clips from the shindig!
Here in Chicago we kick off every Friday with “Breakfast Club.” Teams of people take turns bringing breakfast for the office. Teams usually try to do fun and creative things like beer and pretzels for Oktoberfest, White Castles and Ice Cream Sandwiches, etc. Today was my all time favorite Breakfast Club so I couldn’t help but share it.
In honor of World Storytelling Day, today’s team brought in food inspired by some of everyone’s favorite books. We had: green eggs and ham inspired by Dr. Suess; blueberry pie, ice cream, and blueberry gum …
Happy Holidays! As you all know HOK Chicago has MOVED. Our office Entertainer Extraordinaire (aka Brandon Wojcik) took on the task of delivering all of our dusty old files to our archiving facility in St. Louis. Because Brandon is ultra-cool he made a spiffy documentary. His cat even makes an appearance (so cute!). Also, I’m sure you’ll all appreciate the closing theme. It’s a catchy tune.
In the winter of 2008 a great migration occurred. The migration of files. These files were wrapped, packed, and travelled to their forever home in the haunted and frightening Lemp Brewery. This video documents their manifest destiny. Music by Division and Honore, America’s most incredible one man band. [Brandon Wojcik]
Hi all! I thought it might be fun to chronicle the triumphs, trials, and tribulations of HOK Chicago’s big move. For those of you who don’t know, we’re in the process of relocating our office. We’ve gotten really big really fast and it’s time for some new digs. We’re moving just a few blocks away to the CNA building (the big red one). It’s starting to get really exciting as we’ve now got our permit in hand and studs are going up faster than you can say “change order”… just kidding! Anyway, I thought it’d be nice to start with a quick tour of our current office so you get …
As a part of their Summer Internship experience at HOK Chicago, seven students were encouraged foster their Sustainable Design knowledge by taking part in the 2008 Life Cycle Building Design Competition. The international competition is sponsored by West Coast green, the United States EPA, BMRA, AIA and Southface. The Competition had over 60 entries in two different categories, Building and Innovation. The HOK Chicago interns won 1st place in the Innovation Category and won the Outstanding Achievement award across all categories for the competition. They will receive free passes to this years’ West Coast Green Conference in
mmm…coffee!I save my frog eating for mid-day. I wondered if …
