I was reading this week’s Planetizen newsletter and ran across a really interesting opinoin piece: False Friendliness: Photoshopped People in Public Spaces. The authors compare it to a marketing job for a hamburger joint – it looks similar, but just not quite the same (and not quite as nice):
As a long-term employee of various planning and architecture firms, I am quite familiar with the people photoshopping practice. What immediately came to mind was a rendering I worked on many years ago (pre-HOK).
This rendering was done as part of a planning exercise for a city center redevelopment plan (8-10 years ago). The plan was …
I received one of those e-mails that gets sent around to just about anyone who has an e-mail address. Most of the time I ignore them, but this one I found not only funny, but helpful and ingenious [thanks to fellow engineer David Bruce]. Here are some of the highlights, you can find more at There I Fixed It.
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If you hang out on Twitter, you may have seen a few Back to the Future tweets about today (or yesterday) being the day in which Marty McFly goes into the future! I’m not really going to dispute that here (I honestly believe the actual year is 2015, and I also think it should be in October). My whole point to this blog is about hover-boards! For those of you that may not remember (or worse, are too young to know), a hover-board is a board much like a skateboard without wheels that was used in Back to the Future II. It is, as it says, a hovering board that is supposed to be abundant in the near future. I’m …
So, I know this building has been up for a while, but it was the first time I got to experience it….and it was weird. Partly cool, but mostly weird. Which building, you ask? Why the new(ish) San Francisco Federal Office Building designed by Morphosis/Thom Mayne.
Dedicated in July 2007, the building is the outcome of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)’s Design Excellence program. It’s an 18-story building located roughly where the Tenderloin, Union Square, and SOMA neighborhods come together….on some pretty seedy blocks! Many props to GSA for building in a challenging neighborhood – but, it’s certainly not a place I’d like to walk alone pretty much any time of …
These days, it isn’t easy to land a job interview. But Daphne O’Leary recently broke through the clutter to score an important meeting with HOK Alaska HR Manager Rob Pilkington.
See how Daphne fares in this dramatic depiction of her interview experience.
Any similarities to actual individuals – real or imagined – are purely intentional.
Let’s start with a disclaimer: I’m not your true road warrior, but I do travel fairly regularly for my job. This year, I’ve been on four trips (once to Fort Worth, TX and thrice to Raleigh, NC) – once a month is pretty typical for me.
For the most part, these trips go relatively smoothly. Once in a while, flight delays will get me. For example, I once arrived in Abu Dhabi while my clothes were stuck halfway between DC and the UAE (thank goodness I had packed clean socks, undies, & a t-shirt in my carry on). Another time I got stranded in O’Hare airport due to “bad weather” between …
Math nerds around the world celebrated a little known, but widely growing holiday called Pi Day. The St. Louis Structures Group celebrated our 3rd Annual Pi Day on Monday, March 15.
This year’s events included two awards: 1 for the “Best In Show Pie”; 1 for the most recited digits of Pi.
Each recipient recieved a $30 gift card to Pi Pizzera in St. Louis courtesy of the Structures Group!
And the winners were:
Lemonade Pie by Jason Wandersee (of the Justice Group) (recipe below)!
111 digits (including the 3) – Yong Yu (of the Strurctures Group)(Erich Friesen from the Healthcare Group was a very …
It is customary in the London office to bring in some sweet treats when it’s your birthday. Last month it was my birthday so I thought I’d raid the store cupboard and try the ‘homemade’ approach instead of going to the supermarket.
I’ve now had so many requests for more homemade goodies that I have made this a monthly tradition. So in February there were HOK-themed cupcakes…
… and this month I went for lemon traybakes (see recipe below). I love to bake but usually end up stuffing my face, so it’s really nice to be able to share the calories with others 
It is such a simple idea and yet it gets brilliant results: it boosts staff moral as well …
Tampa residents have long awaited the re-opening of Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park which is situated between the new Tampa Museum of Art and the overly manucured Kiley Garden (design by the renouned Dan Kiley and stripped of nearly all vegetation!). Curtis Hixon is the closest thing to a central park the city has and is hosting a number of events to keep the people coming downtown on the weekends. The city DOT was tasked with finding bike paths to the park, however a sign declaring park rules clearly prohibits bikes in the park and it is being enforced. Furthermore, the park is connected to the Tampa Riverwalk which is a pedestrian thoroughfare that allows bikes, but there are only 4 …
There is so much that can be said about the Idiotarod that it just won’t fit in this space. So, I’ve decided to give you the condensed version. Here, you’ll have, the who, what, when, where, and why of the St. Louis Idiotarod! [--Video (my team 27 secs in) --]
IDIOTAROD: Idiotarod pays homage to the Alaskan tradition of the Iditarod (going on right now) in which dogs pull a sled and musher across the Iditarod Trail. Idiotarod is similar, except replace the dogs with people and the sled with a shopping cart, put it in a downtown city, and add a heavy dose of weirdness. [This sounds exactly like my kind of …
So apparently we need to build a superscraper taller than the Burj Khalifa on a small island in Miami called Miapolis, a “city within a city.” It just doesn’t feel right to me. Thoughts?
As 2009 comes to an end, one theme prevailed at HOK Florida- BABIES!!!!
Of the mere 40 employees, only half are in “reproducing” mode, and we were able to introduce FIVE new lives into our family. Here they are in their first HOKlife debut …
William is HOKer Karen Carvalho and her hubby David’s new arrival. His older sister Emily was runner up in a baby photo contest, so it runs in the family!
Liam is HOKer Brent Cutshall and his wife Elana’s new baby boy. Brent has stated that the rash of boys are because of the recession. It is a trend so far!
To …
Just this week The Williams Tower property management decided to strategically block out the windows on one face of the building from the inside allowing the interior light shine through at night. The result is above, the building spelled out the word T E X A N S. The effort was created to show support for the NFL’s Houston Texans playing on a rare Monday Night Football. Each letter ended up about 65 feet tall and 35 feet wide.
The Williams Tower, formerly known as the Transco Tower, is a 64 story tall skyscraper landmark in the Houston Galleria area which houses the HOK Houston offices, topped off with a revolving spotlight at the top. The …
Picking up from a morning HOK LA’s kitchen coffee chat with Aneirin Owens, who was on the way travelling to Doha for NDIA project, we started talking about what an ideal long flight aircraft seating should be. As much as we both love the branding and high tech concept of Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic, we thought the new Upper Class Suite seating designed by Pearsonlloyd is arguably not too ideal.
Ideal for full body resting, but would you rather be facing the aisle with service and passenger traffic while you are sleeping?
When …
I was cruising through some of my archived Planetizen email news blasts, and found this hilarious image – postcards from Greenwich Village. Turns out that some people are not enjoying the high-end mall-ification of the Village…and one guerrilla planner-type has taken it into his own hands.
Check out the interview with Mike Joyce of Stereotype Design: More Jane, Less Marc.
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Anyone who knows me knows that the saying “the way to the heart is through the stomach” certainly applies. Apparently Hong Kong got wind of this, and that is how our love affair began… with food. Since arriving here just over a month ago, the team has taken me to try a range of cuisines. So far I have devoured Middle Eastern, Indian, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Szechuan style Chinese, Japanese, Dim Sum, and even a good old fashioned hamburger… some of these for the first time.
My favorite meal was the Szechuan style Chinese because of the way the spices and food interacted to cause a sensational taste explosion. The wildest food I have tried was fried chicken feet. They …
On 4th October Blenheim Palace opened its World Heritage Site Park to cyclists for the second time to host Bike Blenheim Palace. The event celebrated cycling in all its forms, including a 20km Time Trial, leisure rides, Sportif and provided its unique staging for the 2009 Brompton World Championship.
The reason I am brining this to your attention is that three of my fellow HOK Londoners took part in the event this year.
The picture is of the Brompton 2009 World Championships, and modelling is our very own Tim! Now you have evidence …
Tampa participated in National Park(ing) Day to promote the need for more parks by creating temporary parks in public parking spaces. Many displayed creative ways to re-imagine the potential of one metered parking space. It is a cool idea to take back some space in the public realm, especially the space you must pay for by the minute!
Tampa’s “Parks” were designed by The Heights, Chris Vela, SuperTest, Cesar Cornejo, Mayor’s Beautification Program, Tampa Downtown Partnership, Experimental Skeleton Inc, Park-N-Squeeze, AIA Tampa Bay, Tampa Street Market, ASD, and the Tampa Downtown Market.
Many cities participate in the event and can be explored at the link
http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=22093&folder_id=3428&gclid=CLCRg6Gg-5wCFQEhDQodcikgbQ
Not too long ago, fellow HOK blogger Justin wrote about the perception of architects. I rather enjoyed that blog and wanted to do a sort of counter/comparison with the perception of engineers.
For starters, I went to a search engine and typed in “structural engineer” images. I was not surprised to see some rather silly images…but also a lot of construction site images…
The next thing I did was to ask around to see what the perception was of an engineer, or …
The ladies of the London Planning team have embarked on a new seating strategy; Fitballs.
Even though Planning are in a rather lovely corner of the office that benefits from rather light footfall of their colleagues (OK pretty normal footfall, but I’m comparing their location to me, and I sit next to the breakout. Which, incidentally, I love as I get to hear everything that’s going on, and catch people as they walk past…), this new furniture arrangement has attracted some attention.
So, some background. When questioned on the origin of the Planning Fitball idea there were was some minor …
One of my coworkers here in the Planning Group turned me onto what is now my all-time favorite podcast (That’s right, you’ve been replaced This American Life – I mean, I have listened to your ENTIRE archive…). I am, thus, turning you, dear reader, onto the super-fun also. And I’ve just listened to exactly the starter-’sode that will surely get you hooked. A Great talk by Merlin Mann about Creative Work and the weirdos that attempt to do it, or attempt to start it. Two very enthusiastic virtual thumbs up. Way up.
Listen here:
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This podcast is, simply put, about things that are awesome. The host, Jesse Thorn (America’s Radio Sweetheart), asks lots of cool questions of people …
So James White… amazing graphic artist is throwing two lucky people a TRON Legacy Poster!! So get to the Abduzeedo website and leave a comment so you also have a chance at winning!!
While we’re on Tron I’m going to tangent right quick to also let you know some incredible information… the music of Tron Legacy will have “24″ new tracks from (in my opinion) the best electronic group on the planet, DAFT PUNK!
Ok, back to James White, excellent artist with a plethora of work for …
Future alien technolgies travel back in time to bring us… Gaudi Stool.
It’s been a while but this was such a shocking discovery for me that it has forced me back into active blogging. Thanks, inspiration – I’ve missed you!
Taken from a great review blog of this piece of furniture…
A stool inspired by the wonderfully structurally insane churches of Gaudi and created by one wonderfully insane designer, Bram Greenen.
Future… have I told you lately that I love you? … well I SO do. Let’s hang out more!
From an old Salon.com story:
1. Be a drinker.
2. Begin with a smoke.
3. Put gambling first.
4. Think oysters.
5. Seek fashion first, then seek to be understood.
6. Sex.
7. Abuse the card.
Take that, Stephen Covey! I can’t do the oysters.
Via Kottke.
Sometimes when I get in the mood for Aphex Twin, I cant stop listening to the same songs over and over.
This video doesn’t have anything to do with AT, but I cant stop watching it!
Ps- Forgive my mostly irrelevant posts these days.
via Kitsune Noir
Most of us have had the awkward experience at a grade school dance where everyone lines the walls and looks at his or her own feet. If we haven’t gotten to experience it first hand, we’ve surely seen it joked about on television or in movies. This timid experience was recently part of HOK St. Louis’ Arts and Education Campaign! The final day of activities was wrapped up with a Happy Hour and Square Dance!
HOK St. Louis employees spent all day eagerly awaiting the moment that they got to use their well rehearsed excuse to NOT dance! Some of these excuses were:
“I’d be too embarrassed to dance with everyone …
In the continued spirit of Arts and Education Week in the St. Louis office, today’s event featured a theatrical makeover of Bob Blaha, Director of Interior Design, and Joe Berra, Field Services Director for the Construction Services group.
Last week, donation jars for both Bob and Joe, Rebecca Nolan (Managing Principal), Ripley Rasmus (Director of Design) and Chris Fannin (Director of Planning) were set out in the kitchen area. The person whose jar accrued the most donations won, if you call it that. After a heated battle between several interested parties, it was decided that both Bob and Joe would be made over. Bob’s jar …
I have finally seen the movie “The Big Lebowski“ do to a barber shop opening here in Tampa bearing the name. The converted warehouse in the Channel District is a successful project of urban renewal and attracts young and old from all walks of life, just like the movie.
The barber shop made the front page of our daily rag and graced media pages from here to St. Pete., maybe even beyond. “Dude” is there in his bathrobe and more details can be found online (Google: “lebowski barber shop“).
I quickly learned that the movie is about bowling – …
Just some comic relief for today.. Enjoy!
The undubbed version can be found here
We live in a world where the Internet is nearly everywhere we go.
This means blogs are also nearly everywhere we go! We can start at our own blog and click a link in the blogroll in order to weave through as many blogs as our brains can handle. Sometimes it’s to see things like this or that! Sometimes we learn things we didn’t know yesterday! Sometimes we learn nothing at all and the only things gained are exercised eyes!
I have certainly read enough blogs for the entire state of Illinois. I’ve learned a lot from blogs too! For instance, as mathy (one of my great made up …
