Glam gal Jeannette shows off her supermodel moves at the Life@HOK photoshoot

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

A typical day involves a morning routine that is anything but typical, which is what happens when you are raising a family and working outside the home. In fact, if we have two days in a row where things go as planned, I would consider it a record. My husband travels a lot so often I am doing my best just to get all of us dressed and out the door on time. With a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old, getting out the door can either be smooth and easy or the hardest thing ever. Many times I feel as though I have lived two lives before I ever even make it into the office.

Q:  You’re a mom, a realtor, a key member of the HOK Planning Group, superstar HOK event planner, and a ringleader of Life@HOK. How do you keep all the balls in the air?

I like having lots going on at a time. That’s not to say that I like multi-tasking. I try hard every single day to give whatever I am doing at the moment the attention that it deserves. But that means having to very quickly have to shift to another subject, or need, or whatever it might be. So I think the important thing is intense focus on what’s at hand — doing the best you can do to anticipate what will come next and what might be needed so you can prepare and have time to get it all done or get help to get it done. Blocking time on a calendar by the day/week/month, trying to set realistic expectations and making lists are my strategies. And the key to everything is having a hobby that you love. Mine is sewing. Note: she’s amazing – can you imagine trying to create a “candy corn fairy” dress just days before Halloween? Superwoman Jeannette did it and had one happy fairy! She has also just finished up this year’s special Christmas pajamas! I suspect we’ll be seeing her on Project Runway in no time!

Christmas PJs hot off the machine with a couple days to spare!

Q: Who or what inspires you?

I find inspiration pretty easily. Maybe too easily, because it has been said that I can get excited over what some might see as very mundane. But somewhere along the way I picked up the ability to enjoy even those little things and celebrate them. I think this is especially important in our world today. HOK’s relationship with the Biomimicry Guild has been particularly inspiring to me. Nature has it all figured out and we have so much to learn. The idea that we could apply that knowledge — the wisdom that could come from a creature smaller than my fingernail —  to change the way we solve problems or even build cities, that is so powerful to me.

The Thompson Family Unit

Q: What advice would you give to other young women looking to have it all?

I don’t know what I could offer that isn’t already written about in blogs, books and explored to the nth degree on Oprah. I guess knowing what your own “it all” is would be the best first step. For me, “it all” really centers around my family and the home that I want to make with them. That has definitely meant making choices about how, how much and where I work. Fortunately, I have had the incredible opportunity to explore those options here. I have been part-time at HOK for 10 years now. During that time I have been in grad school, had both of my children and even spent three years in Little Rock, Arkansas. Working in a flexible environment has given me the space to create the best balance that I can. My hope is that I will look back on this time with no regrets about not being there for them and I will have still had the opportunity to contribute to a profession that can make a positive difference in the world.

Q: What do co-workers say about you?

Well, I took a little survey to find out. I asked 10 people I’ve worked with from around the firm, from San Francisco to Toronto to Atlanta, to take 10 seconds to come up with one word about me. Here’s what they had to say (in order of how I received them). By the way, this was kind of fun and I recommend it if you need a laugh.

• Innovative
• Finicky
• Cheerful
• Energetic
• Organizer
• Wicked-Smart
• Focused
• Creative
• Intuitive
• Persuasive

Editor’s note: I couldn’t agree more with Jeannette’s survey responses, and would like to add a couple more: kind, caring, and SUPER FLY!

This interview was part of our ongoing series on Women Across HOK. For more inspirational stories, click here.

At any rate, I’m going to post possible future-casting ideas for the way in which we could be using BIM in the future to harness the power of the ‘building in vitro’. Some of these ideas are simply and process software related, but a majority of the focus is on Sustainability through the lens of Biology and Data. This is important because the word sustainability will begin to shift more and more AWAY FROM just ‘Green’ to mean a host of other things such as economic life, building longevity, social connectivity, and environmental interactivity. To make BIM real, we have to understand its place and relationship to the lives of buildings themselves, how they operate, and how they ‘breathe’ and how they affect our being. So check out some of these ideas. I’ll attempt to set out the ‘dots’ below, but you make the connections and hopefully a clearer image will be at the other end!

Form & Material – Neri Oxman – MIT

Process & Systems – Janine Benyus / Dayna Baumeister – Biomimicry Guild

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mass Data Sharing – Tim Berners-Lee

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what do you think? Do you have a clearer image of the possibilities?

 I’ll update this post on Post-Bim Day (November 6) with my assumptions of possible connections for BIM’s place in the Qualitative and Quantitative connection to all things.

Stay tuned for more on the HOK projects they featured in the future here on HOKLife… pretty great things are happening!

Their suggestions for the larger design team included:

• Consider solutions that are locally attuned and responsive — derived from the local climate and place in St. Louis.

• Use cyclical processes and closed loops (waste = food, for example).

• Optimize rather than maximize. Get the most benefits possible out of every design decision.

• Leverage interdependencies in developing multifunctional solutions.

• Think about resilience – long-term building cost, value, viability and adaptability – as part of every design decision.

Specific suggestions for “biologizing” the building’s functions were:

• Find opportunities for illuminating without energy. Think about a plant with a leaf pattern that spirals up in response to a Fibonacci series to maximize sun exposure — each leaf is maximally exposed to sunlight. Said Gaidis: “This influences how we might place building masses around a site so each element gets good light exposure.”

• Think about a plant with exposed tips that funnel light. “Ideas like this that have started developing in the industry are LED lights and solar tubes,” said Lazarus. “We need to think about focusing, bouncing and reflecting light.”

• Recognizing seasonal changes by designing a building that responds differently by season. A rabbit, for example, changes colors seasonally. The building cladding could change color by light angle.

• Consider face change. Beijing’s Olympic Aquatic Center featured exterior “pillows” made of ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene). “Our building could use ETFE like shades on a roller,” said Gaidis. “We would perforate them in a 0, 10, 20 and 80 percent dot pattern and then roll this clear shade across enclosed courtyard areas that would allow air to flow through.”

• Take advantage of the well-defined seasons in St. Louis to design for seasonality. This could include everything from including operable windows to finding opportunities to expose occupants to the temperature changes. “Think about a sleeping porch,” said Lazarus. “I have one in my house.”

• Find ways to buffer temperature. Honey bees, for example, can maintain their temperature at the individual bee level in beehives. “Their system is easily scalable and it adjusts quickly at a molecular level, rather than turning on a zone and heating the whole hive,” said Lazarus. Herman Miller has a new integrated energy management platform called Convia that can adapt to the changing needs of individual users.

• Explore humidification thermal exchanges similar to those used by whale or tuna. “We would create opportunities to gather condensation,” explained Gaidis.

The team was most intrigued by the idea of finding a way for this building to respond seasonally, both in massing and at the envelope level. This could drive down energy use while also providing visual cues that reflect the current climate. “The building itself could do this in a low-tech way because we are keeping this affordable,” said Lazarus.

So…the biomimicry-driven design ideas are on the table. “Now we need to make it happen in design,” said Lazarus.

Previous ZEB posts:

Onward to Zero Emissions

Onward to Zero Emissions – Part 2

Weidt Light

Zero Emissions Building Charrette #2 — The Paradigm Shift

Passing Virtual Notes

What does it take to design a net zero emissions office building? Because few of our clients are currently considering carbon neutrality in their projects, an HOK team — with help from some wonderful friends — is designing one through a series of virtual charrettes.

In response to Architecture 2030’s challenge to the global architecture and building community, HOK has committed to designing all buildings to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030.

The idea for the charrette is the brainchild of HOK Chairman Bill Valentine, who wants the firm’s people to gain the knowledge and experience required to design zero emissions buildings. This vision is being turned into reality under the guidance of Firmwide Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus and a diverse team of designers and consultants.

The challenge is to create a zero emissions design for a typical office building, which the team has defined as a multi-tenant, 200,000 gross-square-foot building that is 3-4 stories and built with 95% rentable-to-gross efficiency. Other goals are for the building to be affordable (10-year payback); marketable; buildable using today’s technology, materials, systems and codes; sustainable; and flexible. The design is being created on a site in midtown St. Louis with valuable market input from local developers Green Street Properties.

For this charrette, the team is defining a zero emissions building as one that produces at least as much emissions-free renewable energy as it uses from emissions-producing energy sources in a year.

The team is using building information modeling (BIM) to create a conceptual design driven by performance metrics. The deliverables will include a comparative analysis to a typical St. Louis office building built to code, as well as 10- and 25-year life cycle cost analyses.

Dr. Dayna Baumeister of the Biomimicry Guild is ensuring that the team looks at more than just reducing energy use while using life’s principles to inform the design strategy. “We need to consider what life has learned to do to adapt and thrive in this specific place,” she said. You can listen to her talk about applying this approach to the project’s St. Louis site here: daynabzeb

David Eijadi, FAIA, of The Weidt Group has committed his firm to providing quantitative guidance toward a zero emissions solution. “From pre-design, through virtual design and into building operations, the calculations matter,” he said. “We cannot guess our way to zero and have a real solution.”

To create the net zero design, the entire team will meet virtually for several design charrettes — with lots of smaller work sessions in-between — over a two-month period. Team members hope to complete the design and process documentation by the end of August.

The Team

The team for the first design session included:

Green Street Properties: Michael Clark and Phil Hulse (developers)

The Biomimicry Guild: Dayna Baumeister (biologist at the design table)

The Weidt Group: David Eijadi, Prasad Vaidya, Chris Baker and Vinay Ghatti (energy/daylight modeling)

HOK: Bill Valentine, Bill Odell, Alan Bright (design/architecture); Tim Gaidis (design/sustainability); Dave Troup (design/engineering); Gerry Faubert (integrated design/engineering); Mary Ann Lazarus, Colin Rohlfing (design/sustainability); Jeff Sanner (design/Ecotect modeling); Tyler Meyr (design/planning); Frank Kutilek (cost estimating)

The group will leverage these interconnected disciplines and link the building’s interdependent systems with an integrated design that creates a truly multifunctional, zero carbon solution.

Session One

For the first zero carbon charrette on June 26, the team assembled virtually in Advanced Collaboration Rooms in HOK’s St. Louis, San Francisco, Toronto and London offices. Other participants joined via WebEx. The technology in these ACR rooms enabled team members to see and talk to each other in real time and to sketch together on virtual white boards. As the team entered this uncharted territory, there was a palpable feeling of excitement and nervous energy in the air.

“My focus for the past 15 years has been on sustainability and whole building design, so this is the summit for me, the ultimate test,” said HOK Director of Integrated Design Gerry Faubert, who is based on Toronto.

Early in the session, the team agreed that documenting the process would be nearly as important as the actual design solution.

“The idea is to identify what we can do here while also developing a replicable process that can be applied to any site,” said Tim Gaidis, Sustainable Design Practice Leader in HOK’s St. Louis office. “We’ll highlight items that need to be customized for specific locations.”

“I think we’ll learn so much about how to use an affordable, simple process to get to zero carbon that we’ll be able to tackle any site,” added Valentine.

The team finished the first session armed with four different building schemes to explore before the next full-team charrette on July 31.

“It was an amazing day together,” said Lazarus. “This was a terrific example of an integrated team at work, mining everyone’s insights. As an example, we saw energy and Ecotect modelers challenging the ideas of senior designers. There were no silos by function or role.”

“It was great to see the team keep checking ideas against their local marketability so we can eventually compare the design to conventional buildings in the market,” said Green Street Properties Principal Phil Hulse.

Next Steps

To prepare for the next charrette, team members are running multiple models to identify the most important variables, creating baseline modeling and massing options, conducting a planning design parameter study and developing cost models for each scheme.

On July 23, several team members will meet in The Weidt Group’s offices in Minneapolis for a design charrette focused on balancing the equations for energy performance across multiple building systems: architectural, mechanical, electrical and controls. The group will bracket the ways the team can meet the design objective.

During the July 31 session, the team will select the preferred scheme and further refine the concept. The focus will be on optimizing all passive solutions before pursuing integrated active systems.

“The process so far has already demonstrated how hard it is to not fall into our natural design patterns,” said Lazarus. “We have to challenge ourselves to be driven by performance at each step.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Two trains of thought. The city planned by the people, and the city planned for the people.

What do you think? Is one more democratic? Is one more successful and to whom? Is there a difference in the individual good and the collective good and do we view them differently? (think hard about that last one)

Maybe it’s both, I don’t know. But I have my assumptions. Maybe there’s just the ‘public’ and ‘planned’ framework that’s the most important part. Like New York City in the 1811?

One more thought. In the scheme of things, ‘What would nature do?’ Develop a framework or organize a system that builds its own framework? Instead of the ‘overlay’ for the greater good, it could be the organizational self-assembly if we design it with feedback loops. Without Janine and the Guild, I wouldn’t have been able to assemble that sentence a few years ago, that’s for sure.

I snagged this from our friends in HOK India.

Goldminer in Downtown Helena, Montana

I can’t believe it has already been a week since our incredible visit to Helena, Montana, with our friends at the Biomimicry Guild.  Never…ever…ever…ever did I think I could be more moved by the potential for the Alliance.  I wish all our HOKers and everyone else reading this could have been there to plug in. Maybe we need a good virus!

One of the best discussions we had was about how nature extracts elements from water and reuses everything. We brainstormed new green industry opportunities for river cities — and talked specifically about how to extract critical elements from the Missouri River.  

I don’t know if it’s an eerie coincidence or divine intervention, but sitting in Helena, a town that was founded on a last-ditch effort to pan for gold (and hit the jackpot) it hit me that St. Louis is sitting on the potential for a new mining operation on the very same river. There are probably millions of tons of agricultural byproducts, silt, bio-mass and chemicals, not to mention unharnessed energy flowing past us every minute, in one of the planet’s largest watersheds. We need to find the ‘new gold’ in the mess of pollution. Nature would!

I’ve mentioned HOK’s commitment to Design Resilience in the past, and it is with this in mind that I’d like to recommend a quick view of the commencement address given by a landscape architecture student to the Graduate School of Design at Harvard this spring.  He gives a spirited talk entitled “The Harvard Elm Crisis” in which the loss of the school’s historic elms is woven into a parable about why we must strive for biodiversity and design resilience into our beloved places.  Seems so simple when you think of it this way…

Take a look:

]]> http://hoklife.com/2009/07/02/design-resilience-master/feed/ 0 http://hoklife.com/2009/06/23/on-a-road-less-traveled/ http://hoklife.com/2009/06/23/on-a-road-less-traveled/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:52:37 +0000 jeannette.thompson http://hoklife.com/?p=9438

My heroes!

I have the incredible fortune to be in Montana right now with a unique ensemble of biomimicrists, a planner, an architect and an engineer, all of which despite their diverse backgrounds, are birds of a feather. As part of HOK’s alliance with the Biomimicry Guild, we’re here cooking up some big ideas for our clients today and tomorrow. It is so exciting to be a part of this convergence that is forging a new path, based on some very old principles, for a more sustainable future. One thought for the day which came from Gerry Faubert “…designing uni-functional buildings is like designing a city with only one-way streets.  There’s way no get back to where you started.  “  Food for thought.

Hike to the summit of Mt. Helena with Janine Benyus and Chip Crawford

View from summit of Mt. Helena City Park

Wind formed tree

So what did we learn? Though we’re still chatting, the idea of resiliency has undeniably emerged as a major theme. Resiliency is the not-so-new idea taken from nature that we can withstand the inevitable shocks to the system, rebuild, and continue to adapt and evolve into something better. The key is that resiliency doesn’t just happen – we have to plan for it.

For HOK, this means forming non-tranditional partnerhsips and alliances and exploring how we can help clients use design and systmes thinking to creatively solve new types of challenges. We’ve set up a website for further discussion HERE which includes resources and examples of where this is already taking place. We’re moving forward to understand what these trends mean for different organizations and projects.  We’d love to hear what you have to say!

Over the next few weeks, we can further explore these top 10 forces of global change, so stay tuned! Until then, just consider what the possible link could be between these images…