HKS Finalizes Acquisition of London Office
HKS Inc. finalized the acquisition of the remaining one-third ownership of London-based RyderHKS International from Ryder Ltd., a Newcastle architecture firm. The new office of about 100 people allows HKS to leverage specialty design experience in the UK and use it as a jumping off point for projects in Western and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, says Chair and CEO H. Ralph Hawkins, FAIA, FACHA. He also sees it as an entry into still growing international market sectors, including health care, sports complexes, and luxury hospitality.

NAVIGATING THE ECONOMY
Motivation Needed Now More Than Ever: Four Steps That Work
Guiding employees through tough economic times
Question: How do you motivate people in an economy that is highly unstable and perpetuates fear?
Answer: Encouragement, optimism, and honest communication.
Author Joe Takesh admits this may seem counterintuitive to task-driven managers who focus on the news headlines and the bottom number in their ledger. Granted, the economy is shaky and companies in almost every industry are either feeling the tremors or getting hit head-on by the financial power outage. Things have changed dramatically and in a short period of time, leaving countless organizations thinking: “I have no control over this.” On the contrary, he says, the market will go up and down but obsessing over it forces good businesses to make bad decisions. A prudent investment is to focus on building human capital and it starts with influencing your people to perform at a higher level.

A Patient Room Prototype: Bridging Design and Research
Patients, their families, and caregivers alike spend a significant amount of time in hospital inpatient rooms. Despite the number of hours these rooms are occupied, and the number of variations of room designs in hospitals, there has not been a comprehensive effort to study the performance of new room concepts. To bridge that knowledge gap, Dina Battisto, PhD, MArch, and David Allison, AIA present their Patient Room Prototype in the latest edition of the AIA Academy Journal of the Academy of Architecture for Health.