It’s August and if your climate is anything like that here in Washington, DC, it’s probably a good time to take your laptop (or iPad) and a glass of lemonade somewhere nice and cool and browse through the greatest posts on Work+Place.  This week’s “best of” includes:  

• Improv.  Is it just yuk-yuk, or could this be a useful design tool?  Mike McKeown finds out in this post.
• Distributed Work.  Angie Earlywine posts about her IFMA research.
• Work Faster!  Megan Holder is inspired to make her work more efficient by a cool speedster desk.
• HOK London is Gold.  Susan Baerwald shares about the London office’s LEED CI Gold award.

Check back soon for Episode VIII…and stay cool!

If Star Wars is any indication, Episode IV is where the story gets really good.  We hope you think Episode IV of  the “best of” Work+Place is just as good (minus the yummy young Harrison Ford, of course).  Enjoy!

• Work/Life Balance.  Embracing the new year, Mike McKeown looks to 2010 as the year of better work/life balance.   I wonder if he’s still wearing that occasional tie?
• Construction is Underway.  Doug West shares some in-progress construction photos of the new Russell Investments space in New York.  Vivian Alonso also shares some great shots of HOK’s Florida International University project.
• Work+Displaced.  Bill Mitchell makes his blogging debut, sharing about how work gets done when one

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Now that we’ve whetted your appetite regarding our workplace expertise, it’s time to share some more of our favorite posts from Work+Place.  Enjoy!

• Hello from I-95. Ever wonder what makes a true road warrior?  Leigh shares her working on (not from) the road experiences.
• User Perfected Environments. Ever wonder how people make a terrible workplace environment more palatable?  Check out Jim Rice’s post complete with hilarious photographs.
• I Can Think Here. Catherine Haley shares her need for a change in scenery to get the creative juices flowing.
• HOK Miami.  Interior designer Vivian Alonso shares about the new HOK Miami office, including all the great

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As advancers of sustainability in the built environment, we’re excited when we are able to move forward on a commission that seeks to further our sustainable mission. We’re ecstatic when those plans could help set a precedent for the federal government in the modernization of their building portfolio.

Cue the Excitement
On February 18, the GSA presented Mortenson Construction with a signed solicitation offer and award document for the Design/Build Modernization of the Byron G. Rogers Federal Office Building. A pursuit that began in August, six months prior to the award, it involved two phases – Phase I to show our qualifications and Phase II to present our design …

A lot of HOKers are involved in athletic endeavors of all sorts (cycling, tennis, real estate games, picnic games, etc)…but two of our very own just competed in one of the most extreme running competitions out there: a Ragnar Relay.

What is a Ragnar Relay?  Well, basically, it’s you and your 11 closest pals running 200 miles through the wilderness over a 24-hour period.

It’s really quite simple. Get a bunch of friends together (or we can help you find team members who’ll quickly become your friends) and start running. Okay, there’s a little more to it. Your relay team will

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Future alien technolgies travel back in time to bring us… Gaudi Stool.

It’s been a while but this was such a shocking discovery for me that it has forced me back into active blogging. Thanks, inspiration – I’ve missed you!

Taken from a great review blog of this piece of furniture…

A stool inspired by the wonderfully structurally insane churches of Gaudi and created by one wonderfully insane designer, Bram Greenen.

Future… have I told you lately that I love you? … well I SO do. Let’s hang out more!

Don Crichton, interiors practise leader in HOK’s Toronto studio, talks about the design for Warner Music Canada’s headquarters.

Warner Music Canada artist Alanis Morissette

Previous edition of ITDS: Mark Vogl

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 …

I could listen to Pam talk all day (and I think I did when editing her interview!). Here she describes how her interior design teams marry an organization’s culture with its needs to create an experience.

Previous edition.

For those of you that didn’t read all the way through this week’s installment of HOK Today from Corporate Communications (I know you all read it thoroughly), two of our own Life at HOK folks, Natalie Banaszak and Tom Polucci (one of our fearless leaders) were recently featured in a segment of Interior Design TV discussing the Mannington Create Collection. When you get a chance, go check it out.