HOK (firm)


HOK Group, Inc., formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, is an American design, architecture, engineering, and urban planning firm. Founded in 1955, it is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

History

Founding

HOK was established in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1955. The firm is named for its three founding partners: George F. Hellmuth, Gyo Obata and George Kassabaum, all graduates of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.
The practice's first building designs were schools in St. Louis suburbs, and St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Florissant was the first independent school designed by the firm. Another prominent school they designed was the Saint Louis Priory School.

Early years

By the mid-1960s, the firm was winning commissions across the United States and began to open additional offices, starting with San Francisco in 1966 for the design of a library at Stanford University and Dallas in 1968 for the master planning and design of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Also in 1968, HOK launched its interior design practice. That year, HOK expanded into Washington, D.C., after winning the commission to design the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In 1973, HOK established a presence in New York by acquiring Kahn & Jacobs, designers of many New York City skyscrapers. By the 1970s, the firm was operating internationally and in 1975 the firm was named as architect of the $3.5 billion King Saud University in Riyadh, at the time the single largest building project in the world. In 1979, George Kassabaum was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.
In 1983, HOK formed HOK Sport Venue Event, a subsidiary devoted entirely to designing sport stadiums, arenas, and convention centers, an architectural boom market at the time. In January 2009, the Board of HOK Group, Inc. and managers of HOK Sports Facilities, LLC transferred ownership of HOK Sport to leaders of that practice. The company became an independent firm, and rebranded itself as Populous.

Expansion and acquisitions

HOK's first office outside the US opened in Hong Kong in 1984, and the second in London in 1987, a practice that would be expanded in 1995 by merging with the British architectural practice Cecil Denny Highton.
The firm expanded into China in 2013, when it acquired the New York and Shanghai offices of hospitality design firm BBG-BBGM, creating one of the world's largest interior design firms, although BBG-BBGM's office in Washington, D.C., continues to operate as BBGM. By 2007, international work represented more than 40% of HOK's annual revenue.
As of June 2024, HOK operates 26 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, including in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai in China; Dubai in the Middle East; Mumbai, India; and Toronto, Canada, where it established its first offices in 1997 with the acquisition of Urbana Architects.
Other domestic acquisitions include Caudill Rowlett Scott based in Houston, Texas, in November 1994, adding offices in Houston and Atlanta. The purchase of 360 Architecture in January 2015, a 200-person, Kansas City–based firm, gave the group capabilities in the design of stadiums, ballparks and arenas. That acquisition enabled HOK to launch a new global Sports, Recreation, and Entertainment design practice after the breakaway of Populous, and to open new offices in Kansas City and Columbus, Ohio. This return to the firm's tradition of stadium architecture was buoyed on May 15, 2015, when the firm announced a multi-year partnership with the United Soccer League in the US to lead a stadium development, design and standards initiative to help house all USL clubs in soccer-specific stadiums across North America by the end of the decade.

Leadership

In 2023, Eli Hoisington and Susan Klumpp Williams were appointed joint co-CEOs of HOK, the firm's youngest CEOs, and the first time it had appointed a woman. They succeeded Bill Hellmuth, founder George Hellmuth's nephew, who was president of the firm from 2004 to 2016 and CEO from 2016 until his passing in 2023. Prior to Bill Hellmuth, Patrick MacLeamy served as HOK's CEO from 2003 to 2016, and chairman since 2012. MacLeamy succeeded HOK Chairman Bill Valentine when he retired after 50 years with the firm.

Innovation and sustainable design

In 1983, HOK introduced HOK Draw, computer-aided drafting software products that specialized in conceptual architectural design. In the early 2000s, HOK began using Building Information Modeling to streamline the design and construction process.
His team designed the Weather Prediction Center with a four-story waterfall to direct rainwater into bio-retention gardens; and a louvred sunlight system for a building used by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
HOK has worked with the Biomimicry Group, co-founded by Janine Benyus, since 2008, which directs designers to use natural models in solving problems such as precipitation capture. In 2010, they collaborated with the energy and daylight consultancy, The Weidt Group, to complete Net Zero Court, a zero-emissions class A commercial office building in St. Louis. Using an ocular roof design, their 2017 Mercedes-Benz Stadium became the first LEED Platinum certified sports stadium in the US. Their design for the Boston Consulting Group HQ in Toronto in 2022, uses principles of wellness-informed architecture, to maximise natural light and encouraging standing, for which it won WELL Platinum Certification from WELL Building Standard accreditation body.
HOK and Biomimicry 3.8 released the Genius of Biome report, a textbook for how to apply biomimicry design principles. In 2014, ORO Editions published HOK Tall Buildings, a 300-page book exploring the design of the contemporary high-rise.

Publications

Selected projects