This is a little advertising that IBM does at the end of some of the sponsored TED talks, but it’s absolutely inspring on a number of different levels.

1. The Big Idea: I’ll start of with the quote in the beginning. “US traffic accounts for 45% of the worlds air pollution.” That in itself is staggering, but not surprising. The big idea behind IBM’s technology is that they have developed a way to charge (toll-booth free & convenient for the driver) a “congestion charge” for Stockholm, Sweden. This is to ensure that those who drive are paying for the convenience (and pollution) that they account for. It’s like sub-metering energy or water consumption. Once people realize that others aren’t …

TED. That’s all that needs to be said. It’s been such a big part of my personal development over the last few years and it’s something that has grown to be so beloved for its accessible brilliance that it’s permeated even the most prominent of new sources today including all over CNN. (it’s about time “good” became mainstream)

Well a lesser known “baby TED” is home right here in my own backyard, and its called TEDx Atlanta. Some of you may have read my earlier posts about the September TEDx, interviews and more, and for others I hope you will read them soon. Even if you don’t really read …

Another installment in our series about the inspiring women of HOK (not to say that our men aren’t inspiring, too!): Meet Jeannette Thompson, Business Communications Specialist in the HOK Planning Group. While Jeannette calls St. Louis her home, she supports the HOK network throughout the world. You also know her as one of the Life@HOK blogstar team and future American Idol judge! Jeannette is a true superstar and I hope you enjoy getting to know her a bit better.

Q: What’s a typical day in the life of Jeannette Thompson?

A typical day involves a morning routine that is anything but typical, …

Megan Holder is my cohort.  That’s right. We have a gang. 

Okay, so it’s not quite a gang, but we do have long phone conversations and plans to take over the world. (Wow, guess I’m a little prone to exaggeration…) 

Megan is the life of every situation – her love for life just bubbles out without her even knowing.  She has been with the HOK Planning Group for five years.  She resides in the Atlanta office, where she is constantly being recruited for extra-curricular-work-activities, but is a Texas girl at heart. 

There are so many great things about Megan (including the fact that her traditionally-stoic work photo features some outrageously large earrings) but there’s one …

Most (probably all) of you have heard of Gary Hustwit’s films Helvetica and Objectified. Well this post is merely to inform you that Objectified is now out for purchase on iTunes!! Go buy it, your life will thank you. Ps- During the Atlanta screening of this film, Gary was here and mentioned that he is working on another design documentary already, but didnt say what about, or which industry. What will it be? Fashion? Interiors? Architecture?

About a year ago, I gave you an update of what was going on in my work life.  Looking back over the last year of Life@HOK, I thought it might be fun to revisit that post,and let you know what’s going on now!  You’ll see from the list below that some things have stayed the same, but lots of cool new things have come up too!

Revisiting old news:

• GSA Unit Cost Study: just about wrapped up!
• U.S. Capitol Complex Master Plan (still going, and I still can’t tell you more or I’d have to shoot you)
• Blogging on The Green Workplace
• Blogging on Life@HOK

Sharing new news:

• NeoCon East presentation

…

Who needs an excuse to go outside and polish up on some drawing skillz? I do, and you do too.

When living in New York, I used to do this all the time. Just spend hours upon hours at the MET, the Museum of Natural History, and MoMA just drawing anything around me. Sometimes they were the objects on display, but mostly they were the people visting themselves. I remember it was a time when you catch people at their most curious, facinated, bewildered, and contemplative.

Well Atlantans, on Saturday you get your chance to go out and simply be and draw. I recently spoke with Suzanne McDermott, …

As some of you have read in an earlier post, I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the local TED event here in Atlanta. Hosted and curated by Unboundary, the TEDx Atlanta talks were a great way to, like most TED talks do,  leave you thinking for days upon end, playing in the ‘ether’ of ideas. So much so that in fact it has been two weeks since the event and I’m just now getting around to understand what I heard and writing about it in a way that readers can get what I’m talking about.

I’ll start a series of posts (starting with this one) that will talk about each of the …

Matt Friesen, League Commissioner & HOK Planning Group EmployeeA few months back I blogged about the Workplace of Ideas and some thoughts that the Atlanta office had about working differently as teams and individuals to produce the best product for our clients and build camaraderie. (Remember “Listen All of Y’all It’s a Sabotage!”) Even though the summer has passed, the office continues to come up with new and different ways to get to know each other better. As a way for colleagues to get a healthy dose of some friendly and hilarious competition this Fall, Matt Friesen created HOCKlanta League as part of ESPN …

http://www.vimeo.com/6198030
I got a chance to sit down with the Tod Martin, CEO of Unboundary in Atlanta and talk about the upcoming TEDx Talks that they are hosting. Watch as Tod talks about when he started attending TED, where and when TEDx Atlanta will take place, who the speakers are, and more!  A full list of TEDx Atlanta speakers can be found HERE.
Also, a big shout-out to Kyle Jones and all of the other cool-cats at Unboundary for the interview and the tour!

Ok. So last night Gunlocke, Lees, 3Form, and Humanscale put on a party at the HOK ATL designed Allsteel/Gunlocke Showroom here in Atlanta. The reason you might ask? Specifically to ROCK THE HOUSE! They put on this ‘battle of the band’ type atmosphere where a team from HOK and Gensler faced off in a heated battle of EPIC proportions!!!

While Gensler, arguably, was more talented at playing video games. Two (normally quiet) HOK architects brought the real rock. Not just the notes, but the NOISE!! Check out the photos and video of our final song “SABATOGE’! It pretty much speaks for itself.

http://www.vimeo.com/5857208 

The …

So you all might have read my earlier post of excitement about the localities of the TED talks (called TEDx) and now I have a bit more details for the Atlanta event which is just a couple months away. (September 15th, 2009)

Unboundary will be curating and hosting the talks and so far they have some exciting stuff posted up on the TEDx Atlanta website. It looks like Eric Lewis, Dr. Carl Hodges, and Dr. Richard Farson are already up for slated performers/speakers. You can watch Eric Lewis perform and Ray Anderson speak at …

For all you hipsters keen on TED lectures and who can’t get enough of the erratic addition to knowledge, may I suggest viewing one NEAR YOU!

That’s right folks, TED has been piloting these in other cities such as Tokyo with much success and now they are planned for tons of cities around the world!

TEDx Atlanta is coming in September! Visit the site for more details!

As most of you know, if you’ve been reading lately, that HOK all across North America as been riding bikes to work for the month of May. A special congratulations goes out to the Atlanta team (sorry to be bias). Check our more from the stats below!! Crazy awesome work everyone!

HOK was 19th out of 738 Organizations with

…

We had a deadline Friday: 50% conceptual design, and if you’re wondering what the design intent, or how we made out. Nobody died in the final production, so that was the intent.

Now while I could over-sensationalize the outcome or describe how innovative the design was, I’m not going to do that. See for any presentation or deadline, doesn’t matter what profession your in or what role you may play, there is going to be stress and anxiety. I’ve seen Vice Presidents nervous, managers anxious, and myself terrified. The tapping of a finger, the biting of a lip, chain smoking, even the infamous ‘shaky mouse cursor’; it’s kind of strange how you could be told that someone hates you and that …

One of the comments we hear a lot is, “HOK’s such a big firm.  Don’t you feel lost there?” 

Coming from a very small firm (I was one of eight there; here I am one of 2,400 or so), I ’ll admit I was a little intimidated…but I’ve found the size issue is a misconception; HOK truly does provide great opportunities for collaboration that you wouldn’t find in a small firm.  In addition to having outstanding resources to help with project work (like the Denver project that used staff from San Francisco, St. Louis, and Washington, DC or the KAUST project that involved up to 400 HOK’ers at one point in time), it …

It is an exciting time to do what we do. In a couple weeks I will be back in India with our Lavasa team seeing first hand this series of communities taking shape. Each time we go, the collaboration with our clients and partners at the Biomimicry Guild and Buro Happold is enriched with new ideas for a more sustainable future and new breakthroughs for how we can incorporate nature’s genius into solutions for the built environment.   There is an energy now in the design community that you can’t help but be excited about.  Just check out the …

The team of Freelon and HOK has been named as the architect for the Center for Civil & Human Rights (CCHR) project in downtown Atlanta. The $125 million museum is expected to be about 100,000 square feet. Freelon-HOK’s design features a terra cotta-clad building surrounding an exterior courtyard that will allow people to walk through the site, adjacent to the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola, and also will serve as an amphitheater and exhibit space.

The HOK team members who contributed to this project include Bill Halter, Herman Howard, Michael Katzin, Peter Schefcick, Scott Fleming, Aungwara Nawacharoen, Jeremy Smith, Nekia Strong, Joshua Daniels, Karen See, Callie Burnette and Daniel Wahlig. Gyo Obata provided design consultation.

“Our team is thrilled and honored to …

I’ve been horrible about posting lately, but I couldn’t let this go without posting immediately. The reason I haven’t been posting is because I’ve been working very diligently on  many Construction Administration items for our client, Bacardi USA.

The Atlanta and Miami offices have been working hard to really create something wonderful, but in the midst of construction it’s easy to get caught up in the moment’s immediacies and look past the personalities and get right to straight-talk, brass-tacks. However, to break this and add a bit of escapism and excitement to the process, we have internally created code-names for some of the project team members.

We have yet to select names for everyone, but as of today this is where we stand. More to …

HOK Atlanta has had an interesting past few weeks. They have been rough weeks but ones we are putting behind us because there is excitement in the air. Our office is getting in order for its professional photoshoot and awaits the news for LEED Certification. We are all waiting anxiously for the the unveiling of the most important building to break ground in Atlanta in the last two decades. For those of you who don’t know, HOK teamed up with head designer Phil Freelon in a design competition for a new Center for Civil and Human Rights in the Heart of downtown. Five finalists were chosen and the decision …

HOK recently entered a contest for the Atlanta Furniture Bank called Chairish the Future. Local architecture and design firms around Atlanta participated in remaking an IKEA kids table and chairs into an auction item to raise funds for the Furniture Bank.

Our concept for the table was a fun and uplifting environment where kids could not only play, but also learn. We received the resin tabletop from 3Form’s reclaim program, in which some guys at Southern Model then cut into, which created a ‘toy box’ inside the tabletop. Inside this toy box was ‘Go Green’ coloring book and crayons created by Ping Wong in the Interiors group here in Atlanta. Also in the box were various …

I think a lot of people know that I am quite the sports fan. It’s really the only positive that many of us have right now, and being that we have offices all over the continental United States and Canada. I thought it would be an appropriate time to take a look at how they are doing. Especially since most are at the half way point in there seasons, or almost at the end.

Atlanta Hawks (NBA) – Dreaming of the days of Dominique Wilkins and Spud Webb
Atlanta Falcons (NFL) – Did better then expected, but can’t seem to get out of the shadow of a former player.
Atlanta Thrashers (NHL) – The owner is a crook, and the fans don’t know they exist.
Atlanta …

I think it’s great that even during the tough economic times our HOK Atlanta Office helped a local school in need during the holidays. They raised more than $2,000 for the John Hope Elementary School, located in the city’s Fourth Ward. The money was used to purchase 320 school uniforms to help out low-income families who cannot afford them and also was used to purchase books for the school library. 

Based in Atlanta, Monte Wilson is a senior vice president in the HOK Planning Group.

“It’s a good time to do what we do. The services that we provide as planners, urban designers and landscape architects are, on a certain level, perhaps recession-proof. Folks are always needing to evaluate what to do next in our cities and communities. … The project work that we have going on right now on the boards just in the Planning Group amounts to a land area the size of Connecticut. When you think about that impact we have through our planning decisions on the built form – the transportation networks, the environment, the water, et cetera – there is a huge responsibility.”

Previous edition.

Ping just got back from visiting the Lees carpet mill in Glasgow, VA. Lees spent a couple of days with designers from Atlanta in NYC first before heading out to the middle of nowhere Virginia. She brought back candies from Chinatown and Dorota thought it would be great to see alll of these animal sheltered goodies!

ps. HOK Atlanta also worked with LA, DC, and Chicago to design the new Lees collection ‘Places & Spaces’.