Aerial © HOK

Marking the two year anniversary of the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, we would like to share with you the important efforts of Project Haiti – a LEED Platinum orphanage and children’s center that is planned to be built in Port au Prince, Haiti. The project is lead by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and their official pro-bono design partner, HOK. Project Haiti not only focuses on the children, but also aims to create a “replicable, resilient model for rebuilding” that may serve as a practical teaching tool for the local community. The USGBC motto states, “Every story about green building is a story about people.” read more »

© HOK

HOK has been selected to design Porsche Cars North America’s new headquarters in Atlanta, following an intense design competition. This innovative development includes a contemporary workplace, a Technical Service and Training Center, and a Customer and Driver Experience Center with an integrated road handling track. The dynamic design embraces the on-site road handling track, celebrating the Porsche driving experience at every turn. More images and project description after the break. read more »

© Shoshanah / Wikimedia Commons

The most influential decision in sports in the last twenty-five years was not made by a general manager, coach, or athlete. In fact, it wasn’t even made on a field, pitch, court, or rink. Instead, this decision originated in the office and on the drafting tables of the architecture firm HOK. The architects and engineers decided, going against three decades of stadium designs, some of which were their very own, to not create another generic multi-sport indoor arena for the next Baltimore Oriole park. Rather, they designed a stadium that was considerate of its context, integrated beautifully within the city, and invited the citizens of Baltimore to enjoy watching their Orioles play. More on stadium design and Oriole Park after the break.

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Photo by Matthew Paulson - http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewpaulson/

The St. Petersburg Pier, a long-adored and long-outdated West Florida cultural attraction, has unveiled the semi-finalists in its international redesign competition. Of the twenty-three qualified inquiries received, nine were chosen to move forward in the contest. The competition attracted big names in the architecture world; BIG, West 8 Urban Design, James Corner Field Operations, and HOK Architects were among the participants.

More on the St. Petersburg Pier after the break.

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Photo by slavecky - http://www.flickr.com/photos/slavecky/

With China’s high level of exports and booming real estate market, it is predicted that the country is on its way to becoming the world leader in economic performance. As a result, the Chinese government has been taking steps to show the world its growing economy and the newfound modernity that has come with it. China’s largest cities have already spent hundreds of billions of dollars on new development and infrastructure projects, ranging all the way from from roads, bridges and buildings to new financial districts. In fact, the country is expected to lay down a total of 4.7 billion square feet of construction in this year alone. More information after the break.

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This week, with the help of our readers, we visited Indianapolis for our Architecture City Guide. Our readers suggested a lot of really nice buildings and we greatly appreciate their help. Indianapolis’s numerous sporting events and conventions continually draw crowds to this industrious state capital throughout the year. It is only fitting that there is an architecture city guide for its various contemporary buildings. As a seat of government and industry, Indianapolis also boasts a nice variety of historic architecture that is worth seeing. Take a look at the list our readers help put together and add your favorites to the comment section below.

The Architecture City Guide: Indianapolis list and corresponding map after the break.

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This week our Architecture City Guide is heading to Memphis. Called the Bluff City, Memphis is the birthplace of Rock-n-Roll, Elvis, and the Blues. Along with the lively music scene, Memphis offers an architectural landscape that tells its history and speaks to its future. With the help of a Memphis local, Sophorn McRae, we selected twelve contemporary buildings that should not be missed when you visit the Bluff City. Limited to twelve, we could hardly include all the locals’ favorites so please leave your must not miss in the comment section following the break.

The Architecture City Guide: Memphis list and corresponding map after the break!

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© Woods Bagot

Woods Bagot Architecture and HOK Planning have worked together to generate the master plan for Langfang Eco-Smart City and shared its announcement with us here at ArchDaily. Additional renderings, watercolors and the official press release after the break.
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© Moris Moreno

This week marked the grand opening for the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. The new building‘s 68,000 sqf doubles the size of the original one storey warehouse Dali Museum built in 1982.

Utilizing free-form geodesic geometry, the triangulated glass organically flows around and attaches to the rigid unfinished concrete box, a play of hard and soft, protecting Dali’s paintings and simultaneously providing natural daylight and openness to the adjacent bay. This is the first use of this type of free-form geodesic geometry in the United States.

Mesmerizing visitors within the museum is the coiled concrete form that greets them at the reception desk. The poured in place raw concrete spiral staircase is fitted with light cable-stayed stainless steel guardrails. The material choices provide a subtle juxtaposition along with an obvious nod to Dali’s allure with the double helix and other spiral forms in nature.

If you are a frequent ArchDaily reader you may recall our updates on the Salvador Dali Museum.   Take a minute to check our previous articles with construction photographs and a video feature.

More photographs and further project description following the break.

Architects: HOK
Location: St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
Programming and Master Planning: HOK
HOK Design Team: Duncan Broyd, Eva Busato, David Chason, Jenny Collins Miers, Susan Dame, Carly Debacker, Gary Erickson, Ralph Evans, Miranda Hensley, Will Hollingsworth, Scott Hughes, Laura Matson, Foard Meriwether, Eddie Pabon, Van Phrasavath, Lynn Puckett, Mary Sabel, Oliver Schwarz, Tommy Sinclair, Nicole Stearley, Izzy Torres, Anna Vasquez, Yann Weymouth, Sean Williams
General Contractor: The Beck Group
Glass Structure Consultant: Novum Structures LLC
Structural Engineer: Walter P. Moore & Associates Inc.
Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing Engineer: TLC Engineering for Architecture
Program Manager: Peter Arendt
Acoustical Consultant: Siebein Associates Inc.
Civil Engineer: WilsonMiller Stantec Inc.
Landscape Architect: Phil Graham and Company
Lighting Designer: George Sexton Associates
Code Consultant: Rolf Jensen & Associates Inc.
Food Service Consultant: Schwartz Schwartz & Associates
Graphics/Signage Consultant: Dan Meeker Design
Hardware Consultant: S.B.S. Associates, Inc.
Client: Salvador Dalí Museum
Project Area: 68,000 sqf
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Moris Moreno, Michael Rixon

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© John Picken

HOK has infused green strategies into Chicago’s Greenway Self-Park facility – a not so typical place to find sustainable ideas.   While the 11 story energy efficient parking garage features a naturally ventilated exterior wall, a cistern rain water collection system, a green roof, and electric car plug-in stations, we can’t get over the dozen wind turbines made by Helix Wind that attach to the external structure.

More about the self-park and more images after the break.

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Last week we presented you the current status of Salvador Dali’s Museum in St. Petersburg, FL.

WTSP tours the building with architect Yann Weymouth, revealing more on the interior.

© HOK + Beck Group

HOK, along with Beck Group, has designed a new museum to house the works of Salvador Dalí in St. Petersburg, Florida. The architecture, greatly inspired by the great surrealist, “combines elements of the classical and the fantastical,” according to the director of the museum. The design speaks to the essence of Dalí while incorporating functional elements to combat Florida’s tough weather.

More images and more about the museum after the break. read more »

The new 300-room, five-star-rated Sheraton Incheon Hotel recently opened in New Songdo City, Korea, offering a new state-of-the-art facility in the heart of a new urban center.

HOK provided architectural design, landscape design and sustainable design services for the new 500,000-square-foot, LEED® certified hotel.

More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »

KAUST Campus © 2009 J.B. Picoulet – S. Lourié

As we told you on a previous post, last week we were in Saudi Arabia visiting the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). We showed you some renderings and the construction process, and now we bring you more details on this 6.5 million sqf LEED Platinum project, including a video with Bill Odell, design partner at HOK.

The project consists of two parts, the campus and the university town with facilities and accommodations for students, faculty and staff.

The main area of the campus consists of 10 volumes facing the Red Sea, housing the administrative offices, student services, library, a mosque, labs, research centers and an auditorium. A Costal Studies Center is still under construction and will be opened next January.

Access to the campus

The first building we visited was the Library, the main volume overlooking the Red Sea.
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KAUST Campus

Yesterday, after a very long flight, we arrived to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, one of the most important cities in the region. Why? We are attending the opening of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, an international, graduate-level research institution. The mission if this academic institution is to dedicated to advancing science and technology of regional and global impact, with a fellowship program that provides full tuition to graduate students pursuing the M.S., M.S. to Ph.D., or Ph.D. degrees (more info here).

The University is located on a new campus designed by HOK, 80km north of Jeddah (aerial view of the site). The campus is part of a larger master plan, also designed by HOK: A new town of 10,000 to 12,000 people, surrounding and supporting the University, living in over 6.5 million sqf on a 3,200 acre site along the Red Sea.

KAUST Campus © 2009 J.B. Picoulet – S. Lourié

The project started in fall 2006, and it was finished in just 3 years. To achieve this, the HOK Planning Group accelerated the process with a “Racing the Sun” design charrette in which planners from 10 offices across multiple time zones contributed to the plan over one 24-hour period. Each HOK office had a two-hour window to create its ideas and post them on a server. In the end, each contributed an idea that ultimately found its way into the final plan.

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HOK‘s Los Angeles office, with Parsons Brinckerhoff, was just announced the winner for the ARTIC (Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center) in Anaheim, California.  This new transit center, featuring a high-speed rail network, will update Anaheim’s public transportation system and ignite further development in the city.  “We’re getting the critical infrastructure in place where you can actually envision a day in the future where you can reliably get around without a car,” added Todd Osborne, vice-president at HOK.

More about the ARTIC transit center after the break. read more »