HOK Service Project Targets its 2,600 Worldwide Employees
San Francisco project creates outdoor classroom for urban school
by Tracy Ostroff
Contributing Editor
 How do you . . . make a difference in the community?
Summary: As part of a firm-wide community service effort across its 26 offices in the U.S. and abroad, HOK in San Francisco helped transform an unused back lot of an urban elementary school into an outdoor classroom for learning and investigation. The office, as with all of the HOK volunteer projects, selected a cause that provides a neighborhood benefit. They also chose a program that demonstrates sustainable strategies, and which shows the firm “walks the walk” in all aspects of practice.
“We sell ourselves as a green-focused firm,” says HOK Architect Casey Visintin, LEED-AP. “Our community service program reinforces that and shows how our principles affect the community.” At the same time, he says, the collaborative project shows that sustainable strategies can be achieved at any level.
HOK built the urban classroom over a period of four weekends, with between 90 and 100 staff taking part each workday. They are still finishing up the project. The team collaborated with parents and the school principal, who rolled up their sleeves to participate. “That was fantastic,” Visintin says. “It’s easy to go crazy sitting in an office all day “It was great to go out there and build something for the community.”
2,600 people in 26 offices
Through the community service program, HOK is making a meaningful impact in its local communities through a series of service projects at each of its 26 offices. The firmwide global community service effort engaged more than 2,600 HOK employees on four continents.
 Projects range from building homes in Batam, Indonesia, to the San Francisco outdoor classroom, to renovating an orphanage in Beijing, to helping earthquake victims in Sichuan.
“Our goal is to engage every person in every HOK office to make a meaningful positive impact in our local communities,” says HOK Vice Chairman Clark Davis in a statement. “We think this will be a tangible illustration of our firm’s brand values in action: We Create. We Inspire. We Connect. We Care. At the end of the year, we plan to gather together at a virtual event to celebrate the collective positive impact of our work around the world.”
 HOK’s 2008 Community Service initiative, the architects note, exemplifies the firm’s long-standing commitment to enriching lives and creating more sustainable communities. In recognition of the HOK’s 50th anniversary in 2005, the firm funded the launch of a solar-powered diagnostic and treatment center in southeastern rural Kenya. HOK’s $500,000 donation to Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics Inc. enabled the Chicago-based public charity to launch the most comprehensive tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment initiative in the region, located at the 24-building Mbirikani Clinic complex.
Two main project components
Alvarado School is a K-5 public elementary school with 430 children and is part of the Spanish immersion program within the San Francisco Unified School District. Its urban campus is surrounded by bare concrete and asphalt, with very little green space. Visintin had a relationship with the school, so when the call went out for ideas for the community service program, he suggested the idea to his colleagues. The office voted from several proposals and chose two. The other was a renovation of the SPCA (see reference column).
The team focused their efforts on two main components, Vice President and Sustainable Design Director Zorana Bosnic says: a rainwater collection system and a large planter with soil.
 The cistern will hold 1,300 gallons of rainwater and will measure six feet in diameter and seven feet high. The planter and the outdoor area will support classes in science, and give the students an opportunity to learn about sustainable living, reusing water, and compositing, among other environmentally friendly practices.
There is an active area with potting tables, dry-erase boards, and other teaching tools for classes. There is also a quiet, shaded area with tables behind the teaching area for individual study.
The way they would do other projects
Visintin and Bosnic say HOK embraced the same approach they would have pursued for regular clients, including using resurfaced plastic lumber for the benches and recycling the asphalt they pulled out. They will display on educational boards the interesting elements of the design, in a way that appeals to kids For example, one of the informational signs might relate that the recycled lumber needs 50 jugs of milk. “It not only gives information about the project, it underscores the importance of recycling and conserving the environment.
 School ties
The architects say the new space will support classes in sciences and create an outdoor space for school programs. They also hope to keep a tie with the school such that HOK staff members can return to teach lessons or help out on an ongoing basis.
Most of the kids spend the entire day at school, including after-school hours. Thanks to a parent volunteer effort, it will be possible to use the space into the extended hours.
|
