Thanks to Dominick Gallegos in our Chicago office for passing along this guest post on Senior Designer David Genc’s recent speaking engagement at the 4th Annual Bisnow Chicago Multifamily Summit.
Several of HOK Chicago’s interior designers and architects recently attended the 4th Annual Chicago Multifamily Summit, hosted by Bisnow. To kick off the events covering the future of residential development, HOK Chicago’s David Genc, a Senior Designer and Residential thought leader, delivered the opening remarks to more than 450 of the foremost real estate owners, developers, and financiers from Chicago and abroad.
David delivered a message on how residential design will have to adapt to an ever-changing and increasingly diverse demographic while building …
The ‘Let’s Colour Project’ is a worldwide initiative from Dulux, Dulux Valentine, Coral and Marshall to transform grey spaces with colourful paint. A mission to spread colour all over the world!
Check out the video…
It has been a while since I have posted, but not for lack of something to say. I’ve been buzzing around the world most of the last few months. It’s a pace that has that crazy effect of being completely exhausting and strangely exhilirating. I’ve learned that it’s the people that keep me going. And it’s seeing projects like this, of the first village in Lavasa, coming to life.
Just a couple weeks ago we were meeting with our Lavasa partners, and I really mean partners – …
Two trains of thought. The city planned by the people, and the city planned for the people.
What do you think? Is one more democratic? Is one more successful and to whom? Is there a difference in the individual good and the collective good and do we view them differently? (think hard about that last one)
Maybe it’s both, I don’t know. But I have my assumptions. Maybe there’s just the ‘public’ and ‘planned’ framework that’s the most important part. Like New York City in the 1811?
One more thought. In the scheme of things, ‘What would nature do?’ Develop a framework or organize a system that builds its own framework? Instead of the ‘overlay’ for the greater good, it could …
This past weekend, the City of Toronto held its 10th annual ‘Doors Open’ to celebrate the Architecture in the city, especially since May is ‘Architecture and Design Month.’ Unfortunately this year’s selection of buildings for the public to explore was mostly a wide selection of Public Lobbies and Foyers that anyone could go into on any given day. I’m actually surprised retail shops don’t try to partake in the festivities, just to get people to go into their stores.
So with that said, I thought I would share some photos and stories as we trekked across the city.
The first stop, and new to the Doors Open event, was the Canadian …
In the spirit of true collaboration, and building on John’s post about Dhaval I thought I’d share what I saw when I looked across the office to tell Dhaval he’d been blogged…
That’s Dhaval, along with Han Hsi Ho, and Colin Greene from the DC office.
The whole crew’s here to work on a large-scale urban design and planning project that’s going on in India, and the worksession has been fast and feverish. Buro Happold and our old friends, the Biomimicry Guild, are here, and you can practically smell the brain juice flowing out of the conference room the team has taken over….
Dhaval Barbhaya came to St. Louis from India to get his master’s degree in urban design and planning from Washington University and we’re thankful that he never left (except for those dozens of trips back and forth to India for project work). For most of his eight years at HOK, Dhaval has been one of the team leaders for the amazing Lavasa project, which is a series of compact villages rising along the water’s edge of several thousand acres in the mountainous Western Ghats region between Mumbai and Pune.
India’s DNA Money just ran a story on the Lavasa project in which Ajit Gulabchand, chairman and managing director of Hindustan Construction Co Ltd (HCC), says, “It’s time to stop calling …
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
It’s not often (OK, ever) that we get to break news on this blog, but even before HOK Media Relations Guru Mike has enacted his carefully planned strategy to announce HOK’s latest India news to the world I’m sharing it here.
After a decade of working on dozens of major projects in India, HOK now has an actual physical presence inside the country. HOK India head Rohit Saxena, who last summer moved his family from Atlanta back to his native India to open this office, has just transitioned his workplace from his in-laws’ kitchen table to HOK’s very own space in the beautiful new Hiranandani Gardens Township in Powai. The office is about a 20-minute …
The other day Steve Ma posted about his team’s plan to help the Government of Maharashtra lead the redevelopment process of Dharavi — a vast “slum” in the heart of Mumbai – with a sustainable, respectful, planning-led approach.
Prasoon Kumar then sent us these images from his team’s site visit to Dharavi:
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.
That’s Prasoon with Steve Townsend in the last image.
There’s more on the Dharavi Evolution site.
I’m glad Slumdog Millionaire got the recognition it deserves. I hope Dharavi does also. The Dharavi community, a vast “slum” in the heart of Mumbai, played host to some of the shooting for the movie. For those of you who don’t know it, Dharavi is a squalid, dynamic place of more than 1 million people, a city unto itself, and by no means the only slum in Mumbai, but certainly one of the largest (in the world for that matter).
Consider that one out of every six people in the world lives in similarly impoverished conditions. Entree into the slums is very easy: fewer property problems, patterns of village life are replicated, and business is done with similar …
Life at HOK blogger Chirayu Bhatt has worked as an urban planner in HOK’s Atlanta studio since 2005. He earned his undergraduate degree in Architecture from the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad, India, and completed his Masters of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. Chirayu is passionate about all things urban and about the opportunity to positively influence India’s development through his work at HOK — plus he’s an all-around cool guy.
Previous edition.
HOK began its seven-year relationship with Lavasa as part of an international competition to plan the first new hill station in India since the country was freed from British rule. The winning concept was just the beginning of HOK’s involvement in this series of compact villages dappled along the water’s edge of 9000+ acres in the mountainous Western Ghats region between Mumbai and Pune.
St. Louis-based urban designer Dhaval Barbhaya has been one of the project leaders for HOK since the beginning. Over the past seven years, he has traveled to India more than 50 times. Click the play button to hear Dhaval describe how water has inspired the design of this incredible place.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
…
