We think the warm, friendly culture in our studios—each with its own local vibe—is pretty special. We’re a highly collaborative group of people who enjoy working together and are generous about sharing our knowledge, research and innovations. We think of ourselves as a global network of designers made up of small teams of friends working together to solve complex problems.
During our design processes we engage people from many cultures, both from within our firm and the local community. These diverse backgrounds broaden our vision and feed our strengths.
Finally, we want our work to matter. Our goal is for the spaces and buildings we create to shape the cultures of our clients and the community.
HOK Impact
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“Using design to make a difference.” That’s the mission of HOK Impact, a group of volunteers from each HOK studio who lead our approach to social responsibility and empowering our communities.
One of HOK’s core values always has been that we care about the people and places our work touches. HOK Impact serves as a lens for addressing the social, environmental and economic impact of this work.
HOK Impact supports our people’s efforts to give back by providing pro bono professional services, organizing participation in community service events, and supporting groups that make a difference in the cities where we live and work.
Diversity Advisory Council
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A commitment to opportunity has always been a hallmark of HOK. Our differences give us a unique perspective that enriches our design solutions.
HOK’s Diversity Advisory Council, which is made up of volunteers from across our studios, reflects our rich diversity of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, experience, expertise and geography. The group’s mission is to promote an inclusive work environment and help create a culture in which all our people can thrive.
Our commitment to the Council’s mission begins with the direct participation of members of HOK’s executive committee. The Council also advises the firm’s board of directors. Co-chairs Kimberly Dowdell, Shiva Mendez, and Damon Sheppard provide the overall vision for the Council and support each HOK office’s local efforts to enhance diversity and inclusiveness.
The Council’s recent activities include:
—Facilitating staff discussions and events on work-life balance, leadership and equity.
—Establishing a task force to promote firm-wide mentoring.
—Conducting biennial employee career and opportunity surveys to solicit feedback and guide diversity initiatives.
—Engaging with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other schools with diverse populations.
—Authoring HOK stories that share our colleagues’ personal paths related to diversity and inclusion.
—Supporting and participating with organizations dedicated to expanding opportunities for diversity within the profession. These include the National Organization of Minority Architects and its Project Pipeline, ACE Mentoring, Equity by Design and the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.
HOK Tapestry
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HOK Tapestry enables our firm to improve our project partnerships and foster greater equity within the AEC industry. The online portal (hoktapestry.com) allows businesses seeking to collaborate with us to upload their profile and qualifications directly into the database we use to assemble project teams.
Through HOK Tapestry, we are expanding our registry of potential partners and bringing greater diversity to our project teams. Businesses registered with HOK Tapestry are also invited to participate in programming designed to help our partner firms build capacity and expand future business opportunities.
Our Research Program
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Research-driven innovation is at the heart of everything we do. HOK’s research program provides financial support for employees’ world-changing ideas and is open to all staff.
Recent initiatives include:
—Conducting vital sustainability research to design high-performance buildings that are more energy efficient, have lower carbon footprints and provide healthier, more livable environments.
—Helping cities prepare for sea-level rise with equitable, resilient strategies for the built environment.
—Building equity and inclusion into all our design processes and solutions.
—Enhancing our virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) tools to play a leadership role in defining the metaverse.
—Creating the HOK STREAM parametric modeling and optimization tool, which allows us to deliver high-end architectural and engineering designs significantly faster than with traditional design processes.What sets our program apart is that our active design practitioners conceive and carry out the research themselves. This enables us to quickly apply our innovations to real-world problems and push the boundaries of design.
View a video of our research program.