Greenbuild, the international green building conference and expo hosted annually by the US Green Building Council, will finally make its way to San Francisco this November. Greenbuild has been drawing 20,000-30,000 people for the last few years, and we expect that San Francisco will be the largest ever – depending on who you listen to, there may be upwards of 45,000 people. (Yikes!)
The conference theme this year is “@Greenbuild”, making reference to the mindboggling array of internet and technology companies headquartered in the Bay Area. The …
Last week Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino from Tinker London gave a lunch lecture at HOK London about digital data and the city.
I had met Alexandra at liftconference this spring, where she was giving a short talk on her firm’s work (here a link to her talk). And immediately I thought: that’s a great topic for a lunch talk at HOK.
We provided Alex with a good audience – in spite of the sunny weather outside the boardroom was packed with people.
Tinker London
Alex is the founder of Tinker London, a digital and interactive design firm. She specializes in an area called “the internet of things” – a way of linking objects to the internet and get usable data out of them. …
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?” …
Meet John Wilganowski and Louie Vargas, IT super heroes. Their shirts say everything. The duo is half the IT team in Houston. They are our first line of defense when technology magically goes awry. Louie and John save the day.
These two enjoy making things work faster, better and more efficient for the office so everyone else can perform faster, better and more efficient. Also, they like to do fun stuff like coordinating their costumes. I just had to snap a picture of this “cute” moment.
They have helped and fixed my share of technical difficulties. Thanks. And from everyone who has needed an software update, deleted something on accident, crashed a computer, …
A couple of weeks ago, I shared a presentation on Furnishing the Future from NeoCon East. It occurred to me that perhaps last year’s presentation would be of interest to readers as well. In October 2008, Claire Whitehill and I presented “To Geek or Not to Geek: Leveraging Technology for Better Business.”
The presentation included information on the business case for increased use of technology, types of technology that should be considered in the workplace, and the future of technology in the workplace.
Check out the presentation: download PDF.
P.S. Many thanks to Gerald Callo for the excellent template!
I couldnt find them, but I could have sworn Maya Research’s video’s for Architecture and Information were posted on the hok life blog before.
At any rate, I love this one about an ‘information ecology’. It’s a term coined by Maya to describe teh way we have to think about living inside of information, instead of just viewing it. That is the way they describe our mindset will have to be if we want to have the next big breakthrough developemnt of the internet, information, and knowledge. Take a look and let me know what you think. Be sure to check out their website too for other interviews and studies on stuff they are doing for …
I was chatting with one of my colleagues today (via email), and without getting into any detail as to the specifics of our conversation, I want to springboard this post off of a thread where TED came into the conversation. As we chatted, it occurred to me that not everybody knows about TED, and if they have perhaps heard of it, they may not be exactly sure what it is.
Sure, TED has been referenced in a few HOKlife posts, but the big picture of its significance has been understated.
So what is TED? My response to my colleague was, “TED is an enterprise that hosts talks by those who are on the cutting edge of research and …
Very inspiring presentation by Gordon Brown from last week’s TED Global Conference in Oxford. [Not sure I agree with all the institutional government layers being a 'ground up' guy]…but certainly was moved by the call for a global community and the reality that no one nation [location] can get it all done. Much of his focus on global alignment around a common set of values is right on…and is something we need to improve at HOK. Few other firms have the opportunity at the scale we do to get this right. What is the ethic [ethos] that uniquely holds us together at HOK?…How can HOK leverage our technologies and incredible reach to solve critical global issues? Seems to …
If technology intimidates you, read no further. If you’ve embraced the idea that technology can and inevitably will drive processes at a global scale with higher degrees of precision, efficiency, and elegance than currently possible through collective human decision making alone, read on. IBM has launched its “Smart Planet” campaign just months after breaking the much anticipated Petaflop Barrier, the breaking of which is a huge milestone in computing. Translation? We now have before us the technological prowess to process information at speeds measured in quadrillions of mathematical calculations per second. The scale of this processing is realized at a magnitude capable …
To make up for my ‘doom and gloom’ post earlier today, I thought I would share a new iPhone App. that will be sure to cheer you up! Watch the video…!
With HOK Chicago’s move just one month away, we’re doing a lot of housekeeping and purging around the office. Although the yellow hue that permeates the plastic of our old fax machine belies the many good times that we shared over the past 12 years, we just don’t think the old girl is gonna make the trip with us to the new space. A tribute video is definitely called for. Enjoy. (Thank you Brandon Wojcik for filming and editing – after work hours).
Flickr Video
From The Green Workplace blog:
The second part of the Dell green IT/ green workplace with Roberson Homes was to implement a few green workplace strategies that would save energy and make their office greener. Here are some of the things they did a plus few more ideas that any small company can do for little or no cost:
1. Use flat screen LCD monitors over CRT monitors. Looking at some of the before and after energy stats from Dell really drove it home for me. Robertson Homes saved 50-60% energy consumption by using CRTs vs. LCD monitors. I’ve seen numbers much higher than that.
2. Use power strips wisely. Most people use power strips …
From The Green Workplace blog:
Last week I had the pleasure of joining Dell in a green IT/ green workplace makeover of one of its small business customers. Roberson Homes is a family run business in St. Cloud, Florida that specializes in designing and building sustainable homes in the area. Meeting the family was great – they are clearly passionate about their business and about the environment. A company after my own heart! If you’re looking for a great green homebuilder in the Orlando area, give these guys a call!
As part of the makeover, Dell generously donated eight new Optiplex 960 desktops, eight …
Are you dying for your opportunity to meet some of Life@HOK’s famous names? Leigh and I will be presenting Wednesday, October 29, at NeoCon East in Baltimore. Leigh will be presenting with Kevin Kelly from GSA about furnishings, and I will be talking tech with Claire Whitehill from HOK Advance Strategies, WDC later in the day.
Hope to see you there!
Furnishing the Future: Leaner and Greener Workplace [W7]
Wednesday, October 29 • 9–10 a.m.
How can organizations create workplaces that support the workforce of the future while meeting the growing number of environmental mandates and guidelines? Gain specific strategies for creating lean and green workplace environments that minimize the use of economic and environmental resources. Case …
