A new business-story angle: HOK
It took an outsider to recognize that HOK’s planning method was newsworthy.
Often, it takes an outsider to see what’s unusual about an organization. While interviewing HOK, one of the largest architecture and design firms in the world, we stumbled upon something as newsworthy as any of their buildings.
HOK literally wrote the book on innovative analytic and benchmarking practices that accelerate the design process and demystify it for clients. In 1961, two HOK partners, William M. Peña and Steven A. Parshall, published Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, the standard text on visioning for architectural programming. Now in its fifth edition, the book documents the firm’s trademarked method for clarifying complex planning problems by using analysis cards, spreadsheets and other proven tools.
HOK doesn’t publicize the book, so we created a backgrounder about it for inclusion in all HOK media kits by David Lasker Communications, resulting in a press hit about Problem Seeking® in Contract magazine.
Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, the standard text on visioning for architectural programming.
HOK was not publicizing Problem Seeking®, so we wrote a backgrounder on the subject to include in all HOK media kits.
That Problem Seeking® backgrounder so intrigued Contract Editor Jennifer Busch that she assigned a feature story on it. HOK was delighted with the unexpected press hit.
David Lasker Communications
Banner photo: Pendant lamps reflected in the mirrorized ceiling at Table Rock House Restaurant, Niagara Falls, Ontario, by The Ventin Group Architects (+VG) and Johnson Chou Design, copyright © David Lasker Photography.