Happy Happy Pi Day – Happy Happy Pi Day

Another successful HOK Structure’s Pi day has come and nearly gone as I write this.  As always it was an enjoyable event for all; we brought pie, we ate pie, we recited pi.    This was the St. Louis Structural Engineering group’s sixth annual event to celebrate the mathematical constant pi, an irrational and transcendental number represented by the Greek letter “π”.

To celebrate, we hosted an event inviting colleagues in our office to bring in a pie and participate in a “Best In Show” pie contest (and of course to eat pie) in addition to hosting the “most recited digits of pi” contest.  Winners were awarded with …

Okay, so I was trying to be alliterative… it’s not really a mockup, it’s the real thing!  The first sign to attach to the Freno Raingarden System arrived today and will soon be installed at the pilot project here in downtown St Louis.  This sign will help people to know what’s going on, the benefits of urban rain gardens, and to learn more about the system itself.  Nice job, Matt, Jim, and Paul!

Also, we got to admire the sign against the backdrop of some wonderful jazz music in the center space, courtesy of Jazz St Louis.  The three student musicians were in as a part of …

Rain’s in the forecast and so what better excuse do I have to post-pone that massive amount of yardwork I would love to be doing to bring you a bit more….Freno!  Matt showed me the video he and Javier, another co-hort from Planning who also sits next to Matt, created showing the features of this product. I’ve embedded the video below, but for those of you more literary types, here’s the deal in print.

To touch on what we covered in the last post, Freno is what we call a segmental wall system, it’s basically a kit of 3 concrete parts that are precast just like building blocks in a variety of arrangements to accommodate any site’s installation …

In honor of the impending Earth Day, and to celebrate National Landscape Architecture Month, let’s talk rain gardens!  I’ll pause for oohs and aahs.

Here in the Planning Group we’re always trying to come up with an ideal way to deal with rainwater on-site rather than piping it.  We’ve tried infiltration fields, bioswales, rain gardens, etc etc.  These all work when you have plenty of space, permeable surface, and the option to alter topography on sites.  This, as you can imagine, gets a bit difficult when you’re in the middle of a city…in the middle of a street…

Urban rain …

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,

…