![]() |
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
| Nov 3, 2010
New church in Connecticut will serve a growing congregation
Tocci Building Companies will start digging next June for the Black Rock Congregational Church in Fairfield, Conn. Designed by Wiles Architects, the 103,000-sf multiuse facility will feature a 900-person worship center with tiered stadium seating, a children’s worship center, a chapel, an auditorium, a gymnasium, educational space, administrative offices, commercial kitchen, and a welcome center with library and lounge.
| Nov 3, 2010
Senior housing will be affordable, sustainable
Horizons at Morgan Hill, a 49-unit affordable senior housing community in Morgan Hill, Calif., was designed by KTGY Group and developed by Urban Housing Communities. The $21.2 million, three-story building will offer 36 one-bed/bath units (773 sf) and 13 two-bed/bath units (1,025 sf) on a 2.6-acre site.
| Nov 3, 2010
Designs complete for new elementary school
SchenkelShultz has completed design of the new 101,270-sf elementary Highlands Elementary School, as well as designs for three existing buildings that will be renovated, in Kissimmee, Fla. The school will provide 48 classrooms for 920 students, a cafeteria, a media center, and a music/art suite with outdoor patio. Three facilities scheduled for renovations total 19,459 sf and include an eight-classroom building that will be used as an exceptional student education center, a older media center that will be used as a multipurpose building, and another building that will be reworked as a parent center, with two meeting rooms for community use. W.G. Mills/Ranger is serving as CM for the $15.1 million project.
| Nov 3, 2010
Chengdu retail center offers a blend of old and new China
The first phase of Pearl River New Town, an 80-acre project in Chengdu, in China’s Wenjiang District, is under way along the banks of the Jiang’an River. Chengdu was at one time a leading center for broadcloth production, and RTKL, which is overseeing the project’s master planning, architecture, branding, and landscape architecture, designed the project’s streets, pedestrian pathways, and bridges to resemble a woven fabric.
| Nov 3, 2010
Rotating atriums give Riyadh’s first Hilton an unusual twist
Goettsch Partners, in collaboration with Omrania & Associates (architect of record) and David Wrenn Interiors (interior designer), is serving as design architect for the five-star, 900-key Hilton Riyadh.
| Nov 3, 2010
Virginia biofuel research center moving along
The Sustainable Energy Technology Center has broken ground in October on the Danville, Va., campus of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. The 25,000-sf facility will be used to develop enhanced bio-based fuels, and will house research laboratories, support labs, graduate student research space, and faculty offices. Rainwater harvesting, a vegetated roof, low-VOC and recycled materials, photovoltaic panels, high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and water-saving systems, and LED light fixtures will be deployed. Dewberry served as lead architect, with Lord Aeck & Sargent serving as laboratory designer and sustainability consultant. Perigon Engineering consulted on high-bay process labs. New Atlantic Contracting is building the facility.
| Nov 3, 2010
Dining center cooks up LEED Platinum rating
Students at Bowling Green State University in Ohio will be eating in a new LEED Platinum multiuse dining center next fall. The 30,000-sf McDonald Dining Center will have a 700-seat main dining room, a quick-service restaurant, retail space, and multiple areas for students to gather inside and out, including a fire pit and several patios—one of them on the rooftop.
| Nov 2, 2010
11 Tips for Breathing New Life into Old Office Spaces
A slowdown in new construction has firms focusing on office reconstruction and interior renovations. Three experts from Hixson Architecture Engineering Interiors offer 11 tips for office renovation success. Tip #1: Check the landscaping.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Nov 2, 2010
A Look Back at the Navy’s First LEED Gold
Building Design+Construction takes a retrospective tour of a pace-setting LEED project.