HKS Architects's podcast

Genomics, big data, and continuous health information tracking contribute to personalized health and precision medicine. When communities are designed to keep people out of hospitals and invest in healthy lives and lifestyles, they are moving beyond traditional healthcare, toward personalized health and collective consciousness. What is the design response to these dramatic shifts? What skills are needed to make these personalized systems work? What do effective teams look like? What does success look like?

At HKS, we believe that every key design decision is a performance hypothesis, and we are committed to testing the success of our designs after occupancy. As part of this ongoing commitment, HKS has developed a Post-Occupancy tool, a Functional Performance Evaluation (FPE) focused on evaluating the current operations in the overall facility, and in its individual departments, after the facility has been in full operation for at least one year. Kate Renner will walk through the key findings from the 13 FPEs conducted by HKS over the past decade and talk about what is coming next for the FPE process.

Do you think wellness and performance naturally decline as part of the aging process? We believe you can continue to enjoy an active lifestyle at any age. By incorporating just a few healthy habits into your day, you can increase energy levels, mobility, strength and overall enjoyment. Join Jon DeMoss to learn some quick strategies to improve your sleep, manage your stress, enjoy increased flexibility and movement and eat healthy.

Do you want to bolster your immunity? Increase your energy level? Get a good night's sleep? These are just some of the many benefits of regular mindful meditation. So what does mindfulness mean? It is source of authentic self-confidence and centeredness through healthy breathing and breath awareness. JOIN Kambiz Naficy as he talks about the vast array of meditation benefits and demonstrates breathing meditation techniques to rise above stressful thoughts and passing moods.

What do today’s college students want in terms of residential environments? After analyzing a survey of more than 200 students hosted by Florida International University and interviewing student housing professionals nationwide, David Harper gets some answers. Through these research findings and studying past design changes in this field both domestically and abroad, he will talk about the emerging trends that could directly impact student housing in the next 10 years. He will also discuss how student housing will change in physical form over the upcoming years.

What’s driving change in the laboratory market? A need for quality environments as organizations compete for the best and brightest. Environments that encourage collaboration to improve academic outcome and accelerate discovery. And precisely controlled environments housing sensitive instrumentation, where tomorrow’s innovations will be discovered — from finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease to curing Ebola — from preserving the environment to preserving public health — from engineering new systems of measurement to measure living biological process to engineering human organs. Join Dave McGlashan and Ken DeBoer as they talk about the business and art of science.

HKS - Join Us Do you know you can eliminate the bad foods and toxins in our life that unknowingly create numerous symptoms – from headaches to allergies to fatigue? You just need to know what to avoid. Another healthy thought: You can feed your body nutrient-dense whole foods low in sugar to help clean out your system. This process will allow your body to reset and heal itself. Join nutritionist Candace Stone as she tell us how to spend 10 days to detox our lives.  

HKS - Join Us Connecting passionate people to impactful projects that improve lives. That’s Citizen HKS in a nutshell: we aim to be agents for positive societal change, harnessing the power of HKS employees through design and our presence in communities around the globe.  From Uganda to Washington, D.C., and from Nepal to Phoenix and Austin, please join the Citizen HKS team on September 30 to learn about the Kachumbala Maternity Ward, the Urban Food Studio, our firmwide month of service events and more.  

Are you living your best, streamlined, Lean life? Do you want to spend more time with family members and friends or focus on your hobbies? Learn how using five Lean principles can help you do small things to improve the way you plan your time and manage everyday household tasks. These Lean concepts also apply in the office. Join Bernita, our director of Lean strategies, as she shares some tips, as well as video examples of Lean practices being implement by HKS employees around the world.

The materials we build with can affect our well-being as much as the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. The chemical composition of most building products has been kept secret (often not even the manufacturer knows whether hazardous materials are present). Architects are in a unique position to influence manufacturers to eliminate toxic chemicals from the building products they provide and to educate owners to make informed decisions based on transparency and product declarations. When our buildings get healthier, so do we. Learn what HKS is doing as a leader in impacting the building products industry and educating our design staff.

Join Nunzio DeSantis, FAIA, LEED AP, Executive Vice President, Director of HKS Hospitality, for a fascinating exploration of lifestyle brands that endure, inspire and connect with us on deeper level. From fashion to automotive and travel, we gravitate toward brands that inspire us beyond their functional value – brands that deliver emotional benefits and define a personal lifestyle that make a statement about who and what we are – or aspire to become.

ED rooms have increased from 80 to 140 square feet or more over the years. Jim Lennon, vice president, HKS Team ED, believes this is unnecessary. “About 40 to 50 percent of all ED experiences can be managed in a recliner-type environment. In essence, we are applying first-class style seating design to the ED experience. These private spaces allow patients to select their own environment – including music and lighting.” The goal is to reduce square footage requirements, along with staff and patient waiting times in a space-constrained emergency department, while increasing patient comfort and safety. Learn more about these new AIA/AAH healthcare design awarding-winning spaces – introduced in mock-up form at the 2014 American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) worldwide conference during this informative JOIN US talk from Lennon as well as David Vincent, AIA, ACHA, LEED AP, Designer and Director, HKS Team ED; and Michael P. Pietrzak, M.D., Senior Physician Strategist, HKS Team E

The Patient Centered Affordable Care Act is a surprise supporter of evidence-based design. Although HKS has been researching health environments for more than 20 years, the ACA’s reimbursement guidelines, based on clinical outcomes and patient experience, incentivizes healthcare providers to make informed, performance-driven, care-focused decisions. For example, options on designing ideal spaces to reduce risk of falls and improve infection control are being adopted based on the strength of supporting evidence. Evidence-based design is helping healthcare providers make informed decisions when designing patient and family environments – especially when it comes to designing healthcare interiors. Join Ana Pinto-Alexander and Upali Nanda to explore how healthcare reimbursement is changing the conversation around design, and learn about the key metrics that drive provider decisions and how healthcare interiors can be a performance improvement tool for healthcare facilities.

With the emergence of a more integrated and robust digital toolset, prior delineations among the profession, academia and industry are being replaced by a new era of dialogue and collaboration.  Important to this moment of expanded interconnectedness are organizations and groups that serve as the conduit to help facilitate, translate and even advocate for this method of working. Brad Bell, associate professor, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Arlington, discusses growing trends in the collaborative efforts among the design profession, academia and industry with specific illustrations from the organizations he leads.

How much more does it cost to design sustainably? What is integrative design? What does it mean for a building to be net zero? What is an HPD? What is the purpose of an eco-charrette? Why does sustainability matter to me? Join Elise LaPaglia as she hosts an interactive session of sustainability myth busting.

Join Nunzio DeSantis, FAIA, LEED AP, executive vice president, director of HKS Hospitality, for a lively and interactive talk on the relevant and prevalent role that fashion, music, art, culture, food, fitness, travel, genre, brand and technology play in visionary hospitality design.

    Growing student achievement by tailoring learning for student strengths, needs and interests is the goal of the Dallas Independent School District’s (ISD) personalized learning initiative. Since no two students are exactly alike, no two student learning experiences should be exactly alike, either.       In the fall of 2013, Dallas ISD was among 20 districts across the nation selected by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to receive a $100,000 grant to develop a strategic vision for the development and implementation of personalized learning models in local schools. Following a successful central planning phase, Dallas ISD was awarded a second planning grant of $841,000 to distribute directly to eight school teams committed to transforming their learning environment.     As part of the school teams’ current planning effort, HKS is engaging with Dallas ISD – on a pro-bono basis – through its 2014 HKS Design Fellowship program to help re-imagin

LEED certification is often recognized as the gold standard for sustainability and energy efficiency. This case study analysis – presented by Roy Gunsolus, AIA, ACHA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal, Director of Sustainable Healthcare and Kim Shinn, P.E., Principal and Senior Sustainability Consultant, TLC Engineering for Architecture – looks at two recently certified LEED hospitals in different climate zones to demonstrate the potential physical and planning modifications necessary, and the associated financial impacts if their original intent had been to achieve net zero/regenerative energy use. The first project is a 103-bed, LEED Silver-certified (2010) greenfield hospital in Flower Mound, Texas; the second is a 90-bed, LEED Gold-certified (2014) satellite hospital in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

“I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But, I can’t accept not trying,” notes basketball great Michael Jordan. That’s the philosophy that drives HKS LINE to the forefront of architectural technology. Tim Logan, Associate, HKS LINE (Laboratory for Intensive Exploration), discusses building energy monitoring from a pre/post and a post-remodel stance and what worked and what he learned from the experience. He also talks about a concept car he started building over a decade ago. What valuable lessons learned came from this experience? Tim is also creating a drone helicopter to be used in design. Like Bill Gates, Tim believes it is fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Learn more about what he learned from his failures – the failures that propelled him to learn, grow and succeed.