Besides HOK isa global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm, is at the same time the largest U.S.-based architecture-engineering firm and the second-largest interior design firm. HOK Architecture enriches people’s lives with its more than 1,800 people collaborating across this network of 25 offices on three continents.
HOK counts with two larger offices in California, one in San Francisco and the other in Los Angeles.
ENR California named HOK in 2014 Design Firm of the Year.
Brief History
In 1955, HOK was established in St. Louis, Missouri, and the company was named due to the surnames of its three founding partners: George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata and George Kassabaum. The HOK founding partners were all graduated at the School of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.
The design firm started with 26 employees and its three founders.
The firm has started winning commissions across the United States by the mid-1960s, and HOK began to open additional offices, starting with San Francisco.
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In 1968, HOK released its interior design practice and started to expand also to Washington DC. In 1973, HOK established its presence in New York and acquired Kahn & Jacobs, and by the 1970s, the firm was operating internationally too.
Just in the decade of 90s HOK opened its first office outside the US, in Hong Kong. In 1987, it was time for HOK’s London office. And actually by 2007 international work represented more than 40% of HOK’s annual revenue.
In 2013, HOK acquired the New York and Shanghai offices of hospitality design firm BBG-BBGM, creating one of the largest interior design firms, and in 2015, HOK announced that it had completed its acquisition of 360 Architecture.
Mission and Vision
HOK’s mission is to deliver exceptional design ideas and solutions for all clients, having the focus that creativity and human needs need to be the main goal of every project.
The thinking on environmental stewardship, value creation, science and art is one of the main issues that designs from HOK have in mind.
HOK design solutions result from a collaborative process between multidisciplinary professional to built different environments.
Source: Best Interior Designers
