So this is my first blog post to Life at HOK.  Here we go!

I read about a dozen blogs or so regularly (design blogs, political blogs, neighborhood blogs, and yes…a celebrity gossip blog) and sometimes I run across something that needs to be shared.  It usually comes in the form of a remarkable design that completely stops my train of thought and breaks into my creative mind.  A part, which I must admit, is not used as much as when I was in school.  For some reason my projects become focused around loading docks.

So I ran across this a couple weeks ago and thought it was one of the best adaptive reuse projects I’ve seen in a while.  This being one of the last. Perhaps some of you have already come across this project considering it has been around since 2001.  There are many aspects I like about this project besides the fact that it’s awesome.  First off, I love that it’s an adaptive reuse project.  The original buildings were quite fantastic to begin with and I feel like they were given a second chance at life in a modern world, like Encino Man or Mel Gibson in Forever Young.  Also, I appreciate that they divided the designs between 4 different architects who had different visions on what their gasometer can become.  Now, the 4 previously similar buildings have 4 distinct personalities.  I’m not a big fan of this practice as adorable as it may be.  I enjoy how big the scale of the project is within the existing landscape.  I’m sure some unimaginative and grumpy neighbors found the discarded buildings to be a eyesore, but now they are an iconic piece of the city and a desitination for architecture nerds all over the world.  And I’m glad that they are a mixed use project including housing, retail and public spaces and function as a city on their own as well as integrate into and strengthen the existing urban landscape.

There is something strangely familiar about their form though.   I can only hope that this is what the future is like.