HOK designers from around the globe are able to collaborate and interact in real time in the fi rm’s new Advanced Collaboration Rooms. The high-tech videoconferencing spaces allow users to display (in high defi nition) and mark up multiple project-related documents simultaneously. |
9. HOK Takes Videoconferencing to A New Level with its Advanced Collaboration Rooms
To help foster collaboration among its 2,212 employees while cutting travel time, expenses, and carbon emissions traveling between its 24 office locations, HOK is fitting out its major offices with prototype videoconferencing rooms that are like no other in the U.S.
HOK's Advanced Collaboration Rooms (ACR) combine Cisco's TelePresence high-resolution, interoperable videoconferencing technology with PolyVision's Thunder Virtual Flipchart System—a sort of digital easel pad that allows HOK designers to sketch ideas and "virtually" hang them in multiple ACRs so the entire team can collaborate in real time.
Thunder allows users to display images, video, documents, and even live views of computer desktops. Using a series of projectors and flat-screen TVs in each ACR, multiple ideas and documents can be displayed at one time, and all meeting notes can be saved, printed, and emailed instantly to participants.
"The ability to bring HOK's best creative minds together in these ACRs is a powerful new tool for our virtual design teams," says HOK CEO Patrick MacLeamy, who led the effort to develop the ACR concept. ACRs are currently installed at seven HOK offices, with six more installations planned this year.10. More AEC Collaboration Solutions
Collaboration tools are big at AEC firms. Architecture firm Perkins Eastman links its 13 offices worldwide through its award-winning proprietary intranet system, ORCHARD, which stands for "Online Resource for the Creative Harvest of Architecturally Relevant Discovery" (catchy, isn't it?). ORCHARD unites the firm's Practice Area Communities to share best design practices, insights, and lessons learned. More on Perkins Eastman's ORCHARD
Over at AEC giant Heery International, "e-communities" enable partnering between the firm's offices around the country. Interior designer Judy Peterson used the e-community to get feedback on whether a project should use LEED-CI alone, or LEED-CI with LEED for Core & Shell. The decision: CI only. More on Heery's e-communities
Engineering firm Walter P Moore created its "Communities of Practice" in 2008 to share expertise across its 13 offices. The "COPs"—in its healthcare, sports, aviation, parking consulting, and tall buildings practices—are staffed on a voluntary basis. The healthcare COP, with 27 volunteers, formed its own Medical Equipment Task Group to inventory medical equipment used in hospital projects. "It's great, because the folks in Houston and Florida who have seen every MRI known to man can pass that along to our new offices in California," says Kurt Young, PE, LEED AP, leader of WPM's healthcare COP. More on Walter P Moore's Communities of Practice
Related Stories
| Jun 30, 2014
Research finds continued growth of design-build throughout United States
New research findings indicate that for the first time more than half of projects above $10 million are being completed through design-build project delivery.
| Jun 30, 2014
Narrow San Francisco lots to be developed into micro-units
As a solution to San Francisco’s density and low housing supply compared to demand, local firms Build Inc. and Macy Architecture each are to build micro-unit housing in a small parcel of land in Hayes Valley.
| Jun 30, 2014
Arup's vision of the future of rail: driverless trains, maintenance drones, and automatic freight delivery
In its Future of Rail 2050 report, Arup reveals a vision of the future of rail travel in light of trends such as urban population growth, climate change, and emerging technologies.
| Jun 30, 2014
4 design concepts that remake the urban farmer's market
The American Institute of Architects held a competition to solve the farmer's markets' biggest design dilemma: lightweight, bland canopies that although convenient, does not protect much from the elements.
| Jun 30, 2014
Harvard releases the State of the Nation’s Housing 2014
Although the housing industry saw notable increases in construction, home prices, and sales in 2013, household growth has yet to fully recover from the effects of the recession, according to a new Harvard University report.
| Jun 30, 2014
OMA's The Interlace honored as one of the world's most 'community-friendly' high-rises
The 1,040-unit apartment complex in Singapore has won the inaugural Urban Habitat award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which highlights projects that demonstrate a positive contribution to the surrounding environment.
| Jun 30, 2014
Work starts on Jean Nouvel-designed European Patent Office in the Netherlands [slideshow]
With around 80,000 sm and a budget of €205 million self-financed by the EPO, the complex will be one of the biggest office construction sites ever in the Netherlands.
| Jun 30, 2014
Growth of crowdfunding, public-private partnerships among top trends in architecture marketplace
A new report by the American Institute of Architects highlights several emerging trends in the architecture marketplace, including the growth of the P3 project delivery model and designing for health.
| Jun 30, 2014
Report recommends making infrastructure upgrades a cabinet-level priority
The ASCE estimates that $3.6 trillion must be invested by 2020 to make critically needed upgrades and expansions of national infrastructure—and avoid trillions of dollars in lost business sales, exports, disposable income, and GDP.
| Jun 30, 2014
Gen X, not Baby Boomers, spending the most money on homes [infographic]
It turns out that Generation X, who have the highest incomes of the three generations surveyed, are paying the highest home payments and tend to have the largest households.