In her role as HOK recruiter, Nikki Duffner is always on the lookout for new design talent. She’s also attuned to noticing how design can improve people’s lives – sometimes in fresh and unexpected ways.
I think it’s safe to assume that design probably wasn’t top-of-mind when Nikki had to accompany her young son Max for a seven-day stay at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Yet that’s where they came face-to-face with a bright green alligator wagon. It wheeled past them and helped turn what could’ve been a stressful hospital experience into a playful one.
She later discovered the wagon was the creation of a good friend of hers, Jack Heller. …
Data.
Most of you had one of two things pop into your mind, the guy from Star Trek or Microsoft Excel.
While I’m not necessarily mocking either of those, neither are good examples of data that I’d want to party with. However, it’s these mind-numbing misinterpretations of what is potentially an exciting way to look at our society, the things we know and the things we create.
On the sustainability front, I’ve written about things like IBM’s ‘Smarter Planet’ campaign and how the notion of public policy and connected information can help us create the types of communities and societies that build better cities and infrastructure. I’ve also written about exciting things …
Still hell hot in DC…still a good time to curl up somewhere cool and surf great posts on Work+Place. This week’s “best of” includes:
- Vision for the Workplace. A colleague asked me a funny question about vision sessions – essentially, who wants a crappy office? Sadly…some people do!
- Telecommuting. Catherine Haley exhaults the US government for encouraging employees to work from home (and wishes they’d do it more often for the sake of her commute among other reasons).
- Fonts? Susan Baerwald explains how Gothic can save the environment.
- Etiquitte. Sometimes you just need to tell people how to be considerate in the office - some snarky ideas via the New York subway system!
Check …
Today is the day that brings you just what you’ve been waiting for: Episode III of the “best of” series highlighting hot workplace topics on Work+Place. Enjoy!
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It’s been a couple of weeks since our last “best of” so we thought it would be a great time to check back in and see the hot workplace topics on Work+Place. Enjoy!
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It turns out the 40th anniversary of the original Earth Day intersects with the 30th service anniversary of our very own Earth Mother: Mary Ann Lazarus.
We celebrated this sweet synergy with some delicious green and white cupcakes. Sharing guest-of-honor duties was the incomparable Joyce Saunders (MAL’s right-hand gal), who recently marked her own milestone (25-year) HOK anniversary.
This greened-at-the-hip duo has worked together to advance sustainability within HOK – guiding it from an intriguing idea, to a fringe movement, to a specialty group, to an integral part of our entire practice.
During a brief tribute, Vice …
This month’s First Friday Event (which is usually not on a Friday nor the first week of the month – we like to keep things following organically) took place at the DC office on Thursday, February 18th. The event, Design by Designers, besides being a resounding hit, showcased the design projects our talented HOK’ers work on when they are not at their 9-5.
I must confess I wasn’t able to exhibit at the event, so I’m putting my 2 cents in by showcasing my writting “flair” through the blog, and I’m very happy to say I will gladly participate in the next exhibition!
You …
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 …
http://www.vimeo.com/2973112
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?
In celebration of ‘the Fifth of November’, aka ‘BIM Day’ I thought I’d post some ideas of what BIM (Building Information Modeling/Management) might look like in the future. This could be 20 years or 30 years, or never, but we should never stop thinking ‘what if’. In fact, recently I’ve been thinking about the possibilities so much that I’m getting scared that I don’t really know nearly as much as I should.
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 …
Well, here it goes… in just my second blog post I’m potentially ruining all credibility as a designer (or professional in general) as I blog about one of my favorite TV shows, Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance“. (Yep… I’ve already lost some of you.) I will admit to having an obsession with this show, its contestants, and choreographers. Say what you will about dance, but this show can teach huge lessons about what true collaboration looks like.
The show takes dancers of different styles, pairs them together, and then they perform in yet another style. For all intents and purposes the end product could be merely passable or even a train wreck. But the dances that become the showstoppers are the …
Ever thought of Architecture + Ice cream = Coolhaus?
Architecture inspired ice cream sandwiches, run based on the popular Kogi Taco Truck model, was designed and founded by Natasha Case and Freya Estreller in Los Angeles. You may have already caught them proffering their wares at various events around town — Barnsdall Park, Venice First Fridays, Stories Books — in their pink, chrome-rimmed converted postal jeep.
Check out the product specification that offers selection of Frank Behry (sugar cookie with strawberry ice cream), Mintimalism (chocolate cookie and mint chip ice cream), Mies Vanilla Rohe (chocolate chip cookie and vanilla ice cream), …
Just received this link from Chris Anderson, designer at HOK Los Angeles, that I thought worth sharing.
As architects, LOOM Studio orchestrate a minimum of resources to maximum effect by transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. And I do think the 12 Blocks project is a perfect example of their motto.
This is the second annual Houston Lights Out event. Last year HOK was invited to participate by involving our building manager, Hines, and creating a poster design for the poster competition and for all of our assigned buildings that were participating in the event. So we were asked again this year and we have put out another hopefully winning poster. Last year we got second place and this year we would really like to sink first! So please follow the link below and vote for HOK!
Vote here: http://www.houston.org/lights-out-houston/
our poster is number 7 and it is also on the this post ; )
Certain HOK-ers (ahem, John Gilmore ) have been bragging about HOK’s very cool new collaboration technology: the Advanced Collaboration Room, which combines Cisco Telepresence Technology and Polyvision Thunder Express. Well, John, you are no longer the only cool kid in town! The WDC office became the fourth HOK office to open it’s ACR for business. St. Louis, San Francisco, and Toronto already had them…next on the list are Houston, Los Angeles, and London.
After a few solid weeks of construction, the ACR was ready for …
Every year the Houston HOK office competes in the local AIA Sandcastle Competition. A big part of the event is our inside office design competition, where concepts are thrown around until one sticks right with everyone and our designated office concept renderer, Jim Smith, brings the idea to life with a presentation sketch that gets sent around the office. This year our winning concept was by Erika Mack!
And now thanks to HOK Life you will get to be a part of this action!! Here is what we’re going to town with and I look forward to bringing you all the rich content of the event soon after …
They may be tiny and seemingly irrelevant, but Tardigrades just might have a few things to teach the “more evolved creatures” reading these words. Commonly called water bears or moss piglets, these segmented animals are so fascinating because they can survive the most extreme conditions: freezing, boiling, drought, radiation, etc., etc.
In short, they’re resilient.
Confronted by the extreme conditions of a global recession, we all might benefit from studying the wisdom of these 1 mm organisms, as well as other geniuses of nature and design.
We have created a …
Today’s featured HOKer is a person I’ve been dying to get to know (I hear a lot about him – all good of course – but haven’t had the chance to work with him): the one and only Brad Crown. You’ll notice I was so intrigued that I actually ended up with six questions instead of five. Oops! Read on…
Q: How did you come to HOK?
A: I am a second-time HOK employee – I originally left the
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hello all
this one, more like posting something for you to see and enjoy, is a request for all of you, as designers, architects and corporate office people to give ideas about the new office space!!! Singapore Office wants to create a different concept of lobby, more interactive, colourful, enjoyable!!!
The word would be a POSITIVE ENERGY WORKING ENVIROMENT!
I heard the Toronto Office Lobby is very nice… also Chicago is brand new right? Anything worth sharing? BRAINSTORMING please!!!
thanks so much
paula
Aung Nawacharoen forwarded me the link this morning to check out an Eames inspired prosthetic leg that Joanna Hawley has designed at Carnegie Mellon. Joanna goes on to write on her site that:
“Prosthetics generally lack humanity, style and grace. Often, they look much like landing gear and make the wearer uncomfortable, self aware, and sometimes depressed. By channeling the Eames’ use materials and iconic style, we designed a leg with Steve McQueen in mind. We sought to convey a creative use of positive and negative space, a balance of materials and a reflection of the wearer.”
I would give my right arm for a leg like that!
Nice work Joanna.
via …
It is very common how the different design industries have been inspiring each other, i.e: How car design (from panelization, materials, forming techniques to body paint) has influenced the contemporary architecture design.
Just read this recent post and found it interesting how our industry had somehow inspired the Audi A’KIMONO LS2.0 Concept designer. Based on the “Automotive Lighting Sculpture” concept, the exterior surfaces integrate an artifical lighting system which makes the car’s silhouette recognizable at night. This system makes use of hidden lighting, where the source is not visible. This type of light follows the relief and the shape of the surfaces, offering a smooth and unobtrusive effect to the viewer. It is often used for the lighting of interiors, monuments, architectural buildings and sports facilities.
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Finally a no opinion riddled blogish resource on everything design. It’s spectacular. This project “Space Invading” has a method that pulls from every byte of the known and unknown internet about architecture and design. Enjoy at your own risk… this is very addictive, informative, inspiring, intellectual, wonderful…
I have just stumbled across this fabulous website - Superuse.org. You may already know it, and I’ve just seen that TreeHugger blogged about it in 2007, but it’s so good I thought it’s still worth sharing.
This is what Superuse say about themselves: “Superuse.org is an online community of designers, architects and everybody else who is interested in inventive ways of recycling. The site allows you to post items at various scales within the reuse-topic. All e xamples of small commodities, furniture, interiors, buildings and reuse on urban scale are welcomed. Next to exhibiting applications, we promote the development of knowledge on the subject by starting up discussions, adding historical …
2 January 2009 | Posted inAudio
Posted by Emma 
This morning I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, which is probably the most respected morning radio news show in the UK. If you haven’t listened to it before I thoroughly recommend the podcast. It features political, economic and social debates from the worlds most powerful and/or inspiring thought leaders.
This morning Zaha Hadid was guest-editing the programme, so as you may guess there was a heavy design emphasis. Hadid gave an interesting interview which you can listen to here. But what I was most interested in was an interview with the CEO of Vitra about how the best design is usually achieved under the pressured conditions of …
Art collector Dakis Joannou has enlisted Jeff Koons and a crew of contemporary artists to create the most original sight on the seas.
Anyone cruising the Aegean should be warned that fantastically colorful, wildly eccentric apparition cutting across your bow is not a mirage. It’s Guilty, Dakis Joannou’s new boat.Koons and the boat’s interior designer, Ivana Porfiri, broke free of classic nautical architecture and gave birth to what their delighted patron calls “a totally magical object.” The exterior paint was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s mermaid for the America’s Cup racing boat competition that is now become a permanent collection at …
HOK San Francisco Design Director Paul Woolford on getting paid to play and ideas that last!
Flickr Video Flickr Video
Previous edition.
http://www.vimeo.com/1738770
Check out this installation. I’ve seen a few like this by others but it’s still cool to watch.
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The interactive installation “mæve” (MACE-Everyville) provides visual and tangible access to the social and intellectual networks behind architectural projects. The installation is part of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. It is on display from September 14 to November 23. The project is designed and developed by the Interface Design team of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. At the Biennale, mæve connects the entries of the Everyville student competition and puts them into the larger context of MACE content and metadata. By placing physical project cards on an
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Hey all, I’m sure many of you have read about this already, but how can HOK adopt, what are your ideas? Post your comments and ideas below and let’s see if we can’t get something going!
“The Designers Accord is a global coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact.
The Designers Accord is made up of over 100,000 members of the creative community, representing 100 countries, and each design discipline. Adopting the Designers Accord provides access to a community of peers that shares methodologies, resources, and experiences around environmental and social issues in design. Any …
photograph by Jake Chessum in Fast Company
Breaking with tradition, the Rhode Island School of Design recently hired John Maeda – world renowned Artist, Graphic Designer and Computer Scientist to bring it into the 21st Century. His mandate is to change how creativity is viewed in our century. John Maeda is known for his ideas of humanizing technology. No underachiever, Maeda has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, a Ph.D. in Design Science and an MBA. He believes that we should constantly learn to avoid obsolescence.
He sees creativity and inspiration in everything from a roll of tape to butterfly wings. He has published four books. The most well-known, The Laws …
