Still Problem Seeking at HOK Toronto

by David Lasker | June 1st, 2015

HOK owes its industry-leading position not just to its talented designers, but also to its 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. The book, now in its fourth edition, enunciated a technique for simplifying and systematizing the architect’s first task, which is to envision the requirements of a proposed building or site. Pena explains that since design is problem solving, programming is “the search for sufficient information to clarify, to understand, to state the problem.” That research-oriented DNA still finds expression at HOK, we learned while meeting recently in HOK’s Toronto office with Lisa Fulford-Roy, senior VP client strategy, Strategic Accounts and Consulting; Sharon Turner, ARIDO, LEED AP, VP; and Kevin Katigbak, LEED AP, senior …