Let me start by saying this is not your mother’s clean plate club. August Table is the brainchild of my friend Cherry Chaicharn who I met during my stint in Hong Kong. She has created a series of tabletop items and textiles to bring out the designer in all of us. This Chicago native and former transportation planner (who also admits to having a serious crush on San Francisco) is truly inspired by “place”. Her current “urban”ware series includes these great cities: San Francisco, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

My own obsession with the dishes led to this interview for HOK Life with Cherry. One of the most interesting things about …

Three weeks ago to the day I was on an airplane, headed back from my three month stint working with the Planning Group in Hong Kong. Upon returning it was already time for the holidays… which was great because it left me with time to reflect about what a great experience my time in Asia had been. In what will likely be my last post about my time there I thought I would create a Best Of / Favorites / Top Ten / Craziest / Worst List…

Favorite New Food: Szechuan Style Chinese (check out Shui Hu Tau or Chile Figaro)

Best Holiday Party: …

Posting on behalf of Deborah Rutherford, Operations Leader for HOK in Canada’s Corporate Accounts Practice and President of ARIDO.

 
The Opposites Hotel

All good things come to an end, and after 10 days in China we returned home. On our final day we had a few free hours before heading to the airport. We went our separate ways, some to do a little shopping, some to discover another unique neighborhood, some to see a local silk factory and for me – to visit the local HOK office. I had Googled the office location and thought I knew where I was heading. After an hour of walking in circles around government buildings guarded by soldiers …

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 …

Dragon Garden was made famous by the 1974 James Bond movie “Man with the Golden Gun” starring Roger Moore. Located in what is now known as New Territories in Hong Kong, just sixty years ago it was a barren hill. Over the course of the next 20 years, Dr. Lee lu Cheung transformed it into an oasis and weekend villa for his family and friends. With multiple terraces, a villa, pool house, gardens, and other amenities, Dragon Garden was built in phases and implemented sustainable design practices long before green design was recognized. (Ginger beer bottles were used as planting bed borders.)

Upon his death, his …

Many of us have had the experience of living in either a dorm room or a studio apartment (or both) – but these are typically short-term living solutions.  What if you lived somewhere tiny full time?  And by tiny, I mean really tiny!  Like two times the size of my desk (plus circulation) tiny.

Check out Michael Wolf’s photography of 100 residences of 100 SF each in Hong Kong: 100X100.  Who are you?  The minimalist?   The pack rat?

Ah, the joy of an escalator commute!  No stop lights, no traffic, I don’t even have to wait in line to swipe my transit card. My commute to work in Hong Kong begins with walking a little less than a ¼ mile before hopping on the Central – Mid Levels Escalator.

The escalator is 2,600 ft (800m) long with a vertical climb of 440 ft (135m). According to Guinness World Records, the twenty escalators and three moving sidewalks combine to form the longest covered escalator system in the world. The escalator runs downhill until 10 am and then uphill until midnight. (An important fact if you …

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 …

I’m sure many of you have heard the saying “Everything is bigger in Texas”.  Having grown up there, I can confirm this is definitely true. The great state is known for its ranches, wide open spaces,  large number of big SUVs and pick-up trucks, and (in my opinion) some of the best BBQ and people on the planet.  Not that I am biased… I mean, I only love the place. But, now that I am living in Hong Kong for the next couple of months, I would like to coin the phrase “Everything is Taller in Hong Kong”.  To say that Hong Kong is …

(Above, HOK’s Hong Kong office at night, and my plant)
It is always difficult to write one’s first blog post; hence three weeks after embarking on my “Asia Tour,” I haven’t written one single line. But one morning, I walked into the office and was greeted by a care package from St. Louis. Thanks to Yang, Michelle and Melissa, I now have the hard drives with the data I urgently need, and “Phillip the Plant,” a solar-powered plastic plant secretly taken from my apartment to cheer me up and remind me of home.

While trying not to brag about the great friendships and camaraderie, it is truly heartwarming to know …

Steve Ma’s post on HOK’s Hong Kong office achieving LEED Gold certification gave a shout out to Hong Kong ”sustainable design guru Peggy Chu.” So it seems like the right time to finally feature Peggy in Inside the Designer’s Studio.

In this first clip Peggy talks about sustainable design: “Let’s just do it!”

In this one she describes the pace of development in Asia:

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Our ITDS inspiration!

Please allow me to break the news here on the Life at HOK blog that HOK’s Hong Kong office has just been awarded LEED Gold certification!

That means that ALL of HOK’s four Asia Pacific design offices are now LEED certified – two Silver and two Gold (Singapore, Shanghai, HK and Beijing). I believe HOK Singapore was the first LEED certified project in that country, and the HK office is the second in all of Hong Kong. For HK, I believe shout outs are in order for designers Gary Lai and Rika Lam, project manager Wilson Mak and sustainable design guru Peggy Chu!

I wanted to take an opportunity to say …

Toby Bath is managing director of HOK’s Asia-Pacific practice. In these clips Toby talks about connectivity driven by density and the emergence of sustainable design in Asia-Pacific.

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Sylvester Wong is the director of planning and urban design in HOK’s Hong Kong studio. He designs cities…plays “SimCity for real.”

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Chelsea Cheng (HOK NY Interiors) recently came back from her hometown, Hong Kong, and shared an interesting story on the visit.

“During my visit in Hong Kong, I was given a chance to visit the Hong Kong HOK office. The office is located in Mid Level, Central, where you can take the escalator up the hill or take a few moments to walk up one of the few dated stone paths. Because of where the office is situated, it overlooks the city (Hong Kong Island) and the famous Victoria Harbour. I was stunned by the endless view when I walked into the reception. After admiring the view for a brief moment, I

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It looks like the ultra non-brand retailer, MUJI, will be opening up a ‘To Go’ store in the JFK airport in New York, similar to the one that they opened in Hong Kong.

I hope it does well. It would certianly seem so in New York, but I want one in Atlanta. I might just have to fly to JFK to visity the new MUJI store AND the new renovation to Saarinen’s terminal, which is now inhabited by JetBlue!!

I feel a trip to JFK coming real soon… MUJI TO GO

Image Courtesy: Core 77