I found this interesting workforce analysis. It compares the future workforce needs in California and the workforce that is coming out of school.  The potential mismatch points to a big disconnect between education and workforce demand.  The preparation for our careers begins long before college.
Understanding the demand for jobs and the skills needed to meet that demand is critical for the success of us all.  Our HOK Atlanta office recently had a roundtable discussion with several of our close partners to assess where the market opportunities are.  This will help us direct our business development efforts.  Our education system should be looking toward the future to help prepare our next generation to succeed.

Share+Enjoy

Remote…work? A recent article in the NY Times describes a new trend in working remotely: funerals.

[Friday humor time...at least for me...]  So, I’m sitting here at the island in my kitchen working on day 5 of remote work due to the snow/ice mix that has put the smackdown on the metro-Atlanta region (yes, we shut down for cold weather, too).  Fortunately for me, several years of working with a distributed team has made this second nature:  wireless access, a near-light-speed cable modem, cell phone and a corner office (in my bedroom) have enabled continued communication with my team spread across the globe quick and easy!! 
But it is not without frustrations…
So this morning I got an e-mail from a colleague using his brand new iPad.  It’s got this cute little sign-off:  “sent from my iPad.”  Do I really need to know that?  It’s a little jab in my side saying, “hey, I’m cool, I’m connected, I’m ON-DEMAND BABY!” I groan to my wife about it and then she reads me the closing from one of her client’s recent e-mails:  “sent from my magic iPhone.”  oh, yes, she read it from HER iPhone, too, complete with catchy phrase “sent from my iPhone.”  Another favorite: “sent while moving warp speed on my Verizon wireless smart phone.”  sigh…
Me?  I’m still banging out notes on the microscopic, worn out, push-button eraser heads on my Dash with my fat little thumbs and forefingers!  Even my kids (8 and 5) try to touch the screen to make it work, all the while complaining that I need to get a new phone.  Really?
So, I thought that the least I could [...]

Healthy Workplace
I was reading the Trust for Public Health’s annual report titled “F as in Fat”, which reveals some sobering statistics about America’s obesity and diabetes rates among adults and children. According to the study, adult obesity rates increased in 28 states. 38 states have adult obesity rates over 25%. What’s startling is that in 1991 no state had a rate above 20%.

I recently had the pleasure of being invited on a trip to the Haworth corporate headquarters in Holland, Michigan. The environment at One Haworth Center embodies the company’s commitment to good design and sustainability. We were able to meet with members of their “Ideation Group” who explained aspects of the research they perform finding ways to see how the built environment affects people. Scientific research has found that the arrangement of furniture and interior space affects human behavior. Haworth wants to change people positively. The company uses a variety of research tools including: psychology of existing workspace, organizational culture, social network analysis, and individual work style analysis. Haworth also looks at the different types of organizational cultures which are: collaborative, creative, controlling, and competitive. All together the visit was educational, enjoyable, and truly inspiring.

Share+Enjoy

In my Organizational Behavior class, we are currently studying personality which is defined as the total ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. This got me thinking of how personality relates to the built environment. Perhaps we as designers and scientists of sorts should get to know our client’s personalities when we design their workspaces.
One of the most popular personality tests is the “Big Five Model.” This model says that there are five dimensions to the human personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. So, this brings up the question: Would your personality type dictate the type of work space you prefer? Perhaps if someone is slightly neurotic they would prefer a more minimalist, structured office while someone who is more extraverted would like a more free-spirited, unstructured work environment.
Do you know which personality type you are? To find out, see the link below.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm
Images taken from Google images.

Share+Enjoy

One of the great things about our Atlanta office location is accessibility:  10 minute walk from my house to the train, 15 minute ride, and 5 more minutes to the office.  From there, when hunger strikes (and I didn’t’ bring my lunch) it’s only a 10 minute walk to…Paris? 
A few weeks back my good friend and fellow architect, Luca, invited me to lunch.  “I know this great little French bistro – you’ll enjoy it!”  “Oui!” I accepted and we met on Peachtree Street – the main thoroughfare in downtown Atlanta.  It was a hot, humid, Wednesday afternoon and the typical crowd of business people, tourists and conventioneers were crowding the steamy sidewalks looking for shelter and a cold glass of sweet tea.  “Which way?” I asked.  With a nod and an outstretched hand gesturing north in a way that only a true Roman can do, we started our journey.
Now, I’ve lived in Atlanta for a long, long time, I studied architecture and planning at Georgia Tech and I’ve worked downtown for many years so I’m very familiar with the city and the unique Atlanta-Southern culture.  Downtown Atlanta is not known for its vibrant and diverse street scene.  It has a few lively pockets here and there, but not much continuity between them.  And you have to know where they are or you will wind up wandering aimlessly and never find anything of interest (but something may certainly find you…).  
Thus, I know what to expect when I encounter a downtown side [...]

There was a time when being a research geek was a lonely existence. It’s not just the hours spent alone buried in spreadsheets or lost in the library stacks. It’s also the feeling of isolation. I always felt like I was the only one who cared about this stuff and was a bit ‘closeted’ about the fact that I spent free time looking for patterns in language, numbers, behaviors. I remember watching ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and while we were CLEARLY supposed to look at his workshop (above) and KNOW that he was INSANE, I fell in love with the workshop and was dying to get in there and crack the code, bust the pattern, and figure out how it all came together and what it all meant.
My research work indulges this analytical compulsion of mine, but as I was working on a presentation this morning, I was reminded that there are some limits of data. I may be in the minority among researchers, but I believe that not everything can be measured, or at least not measured well.

The graphic above illustrates a scale. The things on the left hand side of the scale are easier to measure, like space (square footage) and money (dollars). These things also can be measured with more accuracy, just like measuring cups! The things on the right hand of the scale are harder to measure, like productivity or innovation…. like a pinch of sugar or a dash of salt. A creative researcher could certainly come up with a calculation for productivity or innovation, or for [...]

HOK Florida + Atlanta designed the recently-opened FIU College of Nursing & Health Sciences building in Miami- currently holding classes for the Spring ‘10 semester. This project really takes on a 21st Century approach to the interdisciplinary nature of how teaching in Allied Health Field operates. The main feature is a state-of-the-art Simulation Center that supports interactive “real world” experiences by employing real-time video feeds of the in-class procedures to be broadcast out to seminar rooms for group study. In addition to the Sim. Center, the 5-story, 114,000 SF building includes an auditorium, classrooms, computer labs, and research labs. Collaboration spaces for impromptu meeting or pre-class study are woven throughout the building’s circulation and lobby areas. This will be FIU’s first LEED certified building (currently targeting Silver) which features the first green roof of its kind in Miami.

Share+Enjoy

At the  Designers Accord Global Summit conference in October, Peter Madden, Chief Executive of the UK-based Forum for the Future talked about how “the environmental movement has collectively failed to envision a sustainable future in which we would all like to live. The apocalyptic narratives, which have propelled much of the environmental and sustainability movement forward, are such a crushing, insurmountable bummer, that they are very difficult to orient creative and positive change around.” (from an excellent article by Andrea Mangini of Autodesk, posted on core77.com)
As architects and designers, the very nature of our work builds a future and it takes a bold stance on what that future will look like, how it will feel, how it will engage individuals.
Even though creating something as permanent as a building is the ultimate statement on the future (and perhaps the ultimate optimism), too often is the future – or a conception of it – absent from dialogue in the design phase. Best practices, historical precedent, marketplace and market opportunity – these are all ways of looking at the past as an indicator of the future. I don’t disagree with this entirely. As a researcher, it’s my intellectual home base. But why are there so few methods for looking forward? I can’t count the number of design meetings I’ve been in where there is no conception of the future, even at a pragmatic level of how long our buildings will stand and our products be used.
And where there is a dialogue about the future, it is [...]