HOK is turning the tables at Greenbuild ‘09. Instead of adorning our booth with OUR story, we’re creating a platform for telling YOURS. That’s right, it’s Open Mic Night at next week’s big conference and expo in Phoenix.
During the show, we will be inviting individuals to share their Green Aha!, the moment they first realized the importance of living and/or working “green.”

We will broadcast those inspiring tales at our booth, as well as uploading them to a YouTube Channel so others can share the experience. The most profound Aha! moments will win a free signed copy of The Green Workplace.
See you at Booth #3442. I’ll be the guy …
Early in 2007, architect (and Life at HOK blogger) Colin Rohlfing, sustainable design director in HOK’s Chicago office, accepted a challenge from long-time HOK St. Louis sustainable design principal Bill Odell.
Odell, one of the lead designers on HOK’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) team, asked Rohlfing to organize the sustainable design effort and to manage the LEED coordination and documentation for the 6.5-million-square-foot KAUST campus and town center projects—arguably the most ambitious delivery effort in the firm’s 54-year history (it was designed and built in just three years).
Two-and-a-half years and a lifetime of experiences later, Rohlfing, 28, recently learned that the team’s hard work on KAUST had …
MVRDV Designs Gwanggyo Green Power Center
by Alexandra Kain


MVRDV’s masterplan provides space for housing, offices, shops, and educational facilities. Designed as a cluster of structures rising up in concentric rings, each floor in the city is lined with lush box hedges that improve ventilation while reducing energy and water usage. An internal irrigation system stores extra water from the buildings and uses it to sustain these green facades. MVRDV states: “This diverse program has different needs for phasing, positioning and size. To facilitate this
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