This discussion has come up before but never been completed.. any thoughts on HKS Dallas? I know its a huge firm, how is the work environment? What about the projects?
magic P I have a good friend of mine that works for them, however he works here in the LA office which seems to be more of a "satellite" than anything because the environment is much more relaxed and not so "corporate". He's travelled to the Dallas office before and hasn't made too many comments about it, other than it's def. a corporate environment. Having said that, he did say he enjoys the work and is quite happy with the benefits the firm offers. He is also a true designer and works in design as a senior designer, so that might have something to do with it (that vs someone who would be in production).
I don't know what your role in the office might be.
As for work, they are definitely pushing the "design" side quite a bit (from my friend's observation) They are willing to take some risks which most corporate firms don't take.
my friend just got job with them in orlando, and i was considering because they have a really interesting digital department. they had their own hard and software designed for them by nvidia(which hks now has the patent to) which allows them to display all their 3d projects with realistic lighting and textures in real time, no matter how big the scene is, i talked to one of the principles about it for while. for a large corporate firm, they do some decent design work, and from what i hear they hire designers, not monkeys.
Thanks for the info guys, I'm still deciding, they have a great office in Dallas. But a move to Dallas from the Chicago area?? I'm still thinking about that one.
Vado that looks like the Cowboys' old stadium, Texas Stadium in Irving - the shadows and the hole in the roof with the trusses spanning the opening are a dead give away. I have to laugh...hks...ha!
HKS won 7 AIA awards at the local and state level in Texas, more than any other firm. mdler should read the AIA ethics about comments regarding other firms.
Real Estate and Construction
Ralph Hawkins
President and CEO, HKS Inc.
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Dallas | January 2007
Ralph Hawkins knew it was important that his company, HKS Inc., have a clearly defined set of values. But instead of just imposing them, he enlisted the company’s employees to help document what the values should be. Doing so not only established the 10 values that employees felt had always been present but never formalized, it also gained grassroots support for the values. Once the core values were defined and communicated, Hawkins and management slowly weeded out those employees that didn’t reflect those values. As a result, the firm went from $1 billion in construction five years ago to more than $14 billion in construction last year. Smart Business spoke with the president and CEO of HKS about how he works as a servant leader to his employees.
Let values guide you. Allow individuals to contribute to the company. The way they learn to contribute is through our values, but they have to have access and support to make sure they’re out there building our business up.
We are a firm that has strong values. We support those values, and we hire and we fire on those values. We create a feeling of support and collaboration. We’re always competitive, but internally, we’re very collaborative.
It’s much like a family. If you all have the same values, you tend to strengthen each other... The values are the rules of the game. If the values reflect poor ethics, most likely you’re going to hire a bunch of people with poor ethics.
But if you have high ethical standards and you promote that as a value, you find that everybody has high ethics.
Get people pumped. What motivates people is exciting projects and a great, supportive atmosphere. You don’t have to do a lot of things to motivate a staff internally.
If you’re not doing great projects and you’re not making a lot of money and not doing a lot of the things that make a successful business, people tend to lose their morale. But if you stay focused on your business so the business is successful, and you’re bringing in exciting projects, it almost takes care of itself.
Recruit and nurture young people. Our biggest challenge is getting the very best people. The way we’ve addressed that is we actively recruit students. That provides a lot of energy and excitement to bring that young blood into the firm.
It wouldn’t be a smart thing to be exclusive. Be inclusive with the new generations coming up, and it’s important that you set the stage for them to enjoy and grow in their careers.
Keep them and support them. Our competitors have said, ‘The best people we can get are the ones that we can recruit from HKS after a year or year-anda-half.’ The reason is because they’ve had a lot of training. We probably spend $15,000 to $30,000 a person on training the first couple years, so it’s important that we retain them.
You have to be competitive salary- and benefits-wise, but go a step further. People stay at firms because they’ve built relationships at the firm. We do a lot of celebrating among our staff.
Every few months, we stop work and talk about everything we’ve accomplished over the last few months. We celebrate it, and we have a lot of fun. It bonds us together.
Communicate. If you ask anybody, communication is probably the No. 1 problem at any company. We try to be as interactive as we can with our communication.
We tell them what’s going on, but we also have focus groups. I sit down with 20 staff members and we talk about different issues that have come up, and I get their response. It’s tremendously helpful to feel the pulse of our company.
We also had a full-day retreat. We went through the employee survey, and we talked about the top challenges and the top attributes of HKS, and we got feedback on how we could improve the challenges.
When you ask these young people, they’ll tell you exactly what they think you should do and what they’ve heard works at other companies. It’s a great resource to make us the absolute best place to work. You can’t overcommunicate.
Know how to beat the economy. If the economy downturned, we’re prepared to have an exit strategy. We maintain a very close check on the go/no-go process of what jobs we should pursue and what jobs we shouldn’t pursue. There are jobs that are in a gray area that we choose not to go after because we think it’s not the best use of our staff.
Second, we’re collaborative, and we’ve been able to work with a number of minority firms by outsourcing some of our work. It gives them a great opportunity to learn how they can conduct their own business even better and, as a result, we’re able to do more work without hiring (more) people.
If workload did drop, we have about 10 percent of our staff on a contract basis that we could drop, so we would never have to lay off our staff.
If one building market is up and one is down, we balance it out. If oil prices are down in Texas, and Texas economy is a little slow, it might be up in Florida, or vice versa, so that geographic diversification is important, too. Diversification is our greatest strength.
Our clients are beginning to take us globally. We did the Fidelity headquarters here locally, and they called us and said, ‘We need to do a facility in Bangalore,’ so we took off and we went to Bangalore.
Am I confused here or has the real CEO of a multi-national corporation signed onto an internet message board and drug up ancient posts of people talking shit about his company (on an internet message board) in order to defend the companies honor?
I'm spending my Monday waiting by the phone for all these fabulous jobs I applied to.
Wasting away today with two bottles of Moët et Chandona pack of Dunhill International Lights and a computer queued up with nothing but Phillip Glass, Kronos Quartet and Debussy.
It sort of pisses me off that people here are giving HKS a hard time. Yes, some of their buildings in the 80's were really boring but keep in mind that even high-design firms have done their fair share of schlock work. I see the work their firm has done in the past 5 years improve much from what they have put out in the previous 15. They are getting better and I can't fault someone, or a firm, for trying to improve.
For every crappy project there is a client or contractor who keeps taking $$$ out of the project budget or time out of the project schedule. Architecture firms alone should not be expected to bear the brunt of lackluster buildings.
While architects play major role in shaping the built environment, so do bankers, legislators, developers and contractors. Why does no one attack Trammel Crow, Cousins or Jamestown for shitty design?? They are the ones responsible for funding/developing/leasing the majority of the commercial real estate ventures in the US.
What about the financing institution that mandates that a developer NOT use a particular 'high-design' architect because their firms projects consistently come in +10% over budget and beyond the schedule date?
If you're going to shit on HKS I ask all of you: Which firm of comparative size does better design work, treats their employees well, has been in business for 50+ years and is going to give out bonuses at the end of this year?
You make a very, very good point, marlowe. Trammel Crow and every other developer who see the built environment as nothing more than a cash register are far more responsible for the accepted level of crap in our built environment than most design firms.
I still don't believe for a moment, though, that rhawkins is really who he says he is.
I don't know if they meet every one of your requirements but I would answer with RMJM on the terms of better design work and comparative size (multiple international offices i mean).
(no I don't work there)
It's our job to take the punches that developers, contractors, etc. throw at us and still manage to produce a nice building. To throw up our hands and say, this project sucks because of the client and contractor....to me that says that we didn't put enough thought into it during the design process.
I agree with the last several comments. In regards to the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, the client began negotiating with Dallas. We sited it on two locations in Dallas...one next to Reunion Arena next to downtown and the second location at Fair Park. The mayor and city council at that time was dysfunctional and unable to meet the deadlines that they had agreed to with the Cowboys. Finally the City of Arlington approached the Cowboy organizaiton with a financial package to lure them to Arlington. At this point, HKS was well within the bowl design although the exterior skin was still in development due to the lack of a site.
The decison was more political than developer or architectural. However, the Cowboys are popular both in Dallas and Ft. Worth so the proximity to the two major population centers was not entirely bad. The stadium is achieving great financial success and bringing alot of retail and restaurant traffic to Arlington.
The stadium is also the most energy efficient stadium built. Natural light comes through clerestory and endwalls as well as a soft white light from the canvassed retractable roof. Natural ventilation is availabe at the end walls and of course the roof. Parking is shared with the Ball Park and UTA which reduced the parking requirement.
Overall the project has been a big success and has recieved good reivews.
HKS is celebrating our 70th year of practice. This economy has been tough on all large firms both domestically and internationally. The AIA believes there are over 35,000 unemployed architect in the US. the UK is probably as bad if not worse.
As architects we need to all stick together and help develop practices that share the work to keep our profession alive. Sustainability is making our profession relative in a strong way. Be a part of it.
When I first got on this discussion thread, I found the input productive and professional. I still find it so, except for a couple rude people. Fortunately, they don't represnet the majority of our profession. I am signing off and letting my participation end at this point. Good luck to you all.
Ralph Hawkins
CEO
HKS
considering blog sites are usually completely anonymous unless the user provides their personal information, who knows? my guess would be there are not many CEO's are on archinet, but i'm sure if we do have a few CEO's log on here and if they were to present their identities on archinet, most would be greeted like Mr. Hawkins, with disbelief.
marlowe, while i respect your opinion, let's review what we know:
1. this thread is two years old - at least - and other threads hawkins drew up are older - 5 years old.
2. these topics - if there was a dead file pile, would have most certainly found themselves there.
3. hawkins brought these threads back to life, and made some assertions regarding code of ethics violations, of which i am still trying to determine.
4. saying a firm sucks, is merely an opinion, an anonymous one at that.
5. as for slamming hks, i don't recall you or anyone else having a problem with this board slamming Rem or anyone else working for China. not equating human rights with land use abuse or touting a questionable EPA policy, instituted under Bush - to give the appearance of sustainability - that is no longer in effect, but the point remains Rem does good work, however his work in China - and his apology tour is/was ridiculous. so, for a firm to stand on "values" and then to build for a guy who lacks values, is also worthy of criticism. the dallas stadium is rip for criticism.
6. as for their other work, i see they do good work, not disputing that, they seem on par with ellerbe and others.
7. i would expect that a ceo would not come here and write that working for them is an awful choice, but i would almost certainly expect that it's not as rosy as he'd make it out to be. i would guess that for someone outside of that culture, and going to work there, in dallas, it would be a difficult situation. i would also guess that those recently unemployed or soon to be unemployed, would have a lot more to say.
8. as for banks financing projects; ultimately firms choose what and who they want to work with, values remember, and most firms - large firms - will sell values to employees and clients, but the bottom line rules. in the end, when the chips are down, and the project hangs in the balance, and the decision as to whether or not your kid gets the gi joe with the kung fu grip, is on the line, values go or get bent, and the project stays.
9. still no comment from faia hawkins on the layoffs thread, and knowing that he spent part of his day typing in HKS in the search part of archinect, you know that HKS came up several times in that thread.
10. aside from the crit of the design, theres this bit|
"When originally announced by franchise owner Jerry Jones in 2004, the plans for a new stadium for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys carried a price tag of $650 million dollars. The financing sources included: $325 million dollars to be generated by sales tax increases in Arlington, TX; a $76 million dollar loan from the NFL; and funds raised by the Dallas Cowboys through the now imploded auction-rate securities market. Though Jerry Jones is Seeking Investors for Naming Rights to new Dallas Cowboys Stadium scheduled to be ready for the 2009 NFL season, on October 27th, 2008, Jerry Jones hosted a variety of banks at the new stadium in an attempt to raise an additional $350 million dollars in financing to complete the project."
all of that prior to the bust last year. now is that HKS fault? no, but again, jerry jones is a known narcissist, and therefor know for having zero to no values.
11. i am sure those firms you listed would gladly get shit on here, perhaps someone should let their ceo's know where to post, so we can all "bash" them.
If it is you, thanks for taking time out of your busy life to right the wrong of the world.
HKS does not suck, it's done some great projects at home and abroad. But what can't be overlooked is the staff reductions that have taken place since October 2008. There was no rhyme or reason to the reductions that we could ascertain. I mean a PA/PM/ID is busting their ass one day on a project, then after lunch a phone call from HR...
Too many PMs and PAs, associates and vice-presidents let go. Employees that would have worked weekends for you or late nights away from loved ones, if you needed us to. Lots of great, talented, and passionate people. All let go in groups...
Sorry if some of us sound a little bitter, a little frustrated. A year or so ago, we never thought we'd feel resentment towards your firm. But we see that life goes on for the folks on McKinney Avenue. Retrospect. CanStruction. I'm sure the company gala was another rip-roaring hootany.
Well it's business, nothing personal.
Those hundreds, maybe thousands that have been let go have had to struggle to find something decent to make ends meet, to pay for mortgages, car payments and other bills. Well it's their fault, they should've been better prepared. Shit happens even when you're being led down a primrose path.
It's a good experience for some of us. We now know that no firm is perfect, they all seem to have faults as they are run by humans who have agendas and allegiances, as well as some room for error and oversight.
HKS was a great place to work for, really it was. I won't buy into the auto-hate for the firm that some reserve for it. I'm sure RTKL, Gensler, HOK, SOM, and others have their own hate groups and detractors. It's part of success, you'll get a periphery of "fans" who write letters into the Dallas Morning News praising the virtues of HKS and questioning why aren't they designing the Dallas Convention Center Hotel??? Also with that success you get the detractors of the firm, who post on this bbs.
Blackflag,
This recession has caused many firms to downsize as evidenced by the AIA Large Firm Round Table. As a professional service firm, our major expense is unfortunately our people. When I saw clients stop paying us in August of 2008, I was concerned. Our accounts recievables went up over 30% in that one month. Clients had stopped paying. the more that I investigated the economy, it look like it was in for a major crash in the credit markets. Our developer friends were telling us the money to design or build buildings was gone.
As we projected out in 3 month intervals, it was showing us that we had to reduce staff to have a viable business. Although this is one of the most unpleasant things to do. I projected the numbers and waited until October to see if things were improved. As you know by October, the stock market crashed and we went into a full bore recession. We felt the projections for staff reductions had to be proactive vs. reactive. I formed a committee of eight people that worked with the department heads and the regional offices. We began to list all staff and then ranked them on a number of criteria.
We tried to make it as fair as we could, but I know we made some mistakes. It was difficult, because these were all good people. The fact is, I had to think of the company first. All of us were devastated to lose some of the staff we laid off. Including retiring and terminating some principals among us.
Now that I look back, it was a very positive approach to be proactive vs. reactive to the lay offs. We literally would have had no work for people to work on if we had kept the people. That would have been costly. We cut before that happened. The firm was able to reduce expenses including staff so that we remained financially strong with good cash flow. We will also distribute bonuses this year, not alot but everyone will get a bonus in the firm.
It hurt us because we did care tremendously about the staff and there is not one that I wouldn't welcome back. In fact we are going to celebrate in a big way, when we bring that first person back.
In the last month or so our work has picked up and could even anticipate hiring some 3 to 5 year experienced people back. We have recently been commissioned on an new Four Seasons Hotel in Florida, 25 airports in Mexico, a large 700K SF clinic in Utah, Minnesota Vikings Stadium, and several other major projects.
We are now planning our Shanghai office by the end of the year, with several new projects in China. We remain financially strong and are even evaluating a couple of mergers/acquistions to strengthen some of our markets. It has been a tough year for all of us, but my heart and thoughts are with those that we lost. We have a website called Team ExHKS on LinkedIn that I have encouraged our alums to register so that we can stay in touch with them on opportunities. It is business, like you say, not personal.
Ralph
I can confirm that this is Ralph. The tone of the letter is consistent with postings on his blog. I find it very interesting that a CEO of such a large firm is following archinect. Just shows that you never know who is reading.
Dear mr rhawkins.....can you tell me the other three employees who jumped ship while working on the Pima College Project in Arizona besides William Wild and Doug McNeil. If you can I will know you are real.
" Years after a wave of construction brought publicly financed stadiums costing billions of dollars to cities across the country, taxpayers are once again being asked to reach into their pockets.
From New Jersey to Ohio to Arizona, the stadiums were sold as a key to redevelopment and as the only way to retain sports franchises. But the deals that were used to persuade taxpayers to finance their construction have in many cases backfired, the result of overly optimistic revenue assumptions and the recession. ...
But sales tax receipts have fallen so fast in the last year that [Cincinnati's Hamilton] county is now scrambling to bridge a $14 million deficit in its sales tax fund. The public schools, which deferred taking their share for years, want their money.
The teams have not volunteered to rewrite their leases. So in the coming weeks, the county plans to cut basic services, lower its legal bills and drain a bond reserve fund with no plan for paying it back."
HKS... thoughts?
This discussion has come up before but never been completed.. any thoughts on HKS Dallas? I know its a huge firm, how is the work environment? What about the projects?
i think they suck
yeah? and why?
I was just saying that...I know nothing about the firm...just being an ass
I just looked at their website...
magic P I have a good friend of mine that works for them, however he works here in the LA office which seems to be more of a "satellite" than anything because the environment is much more relaxed and not so "corporate". He's travelled to the Dallas office before and hasn't made too many comments about it, other than it's def. a corporate environment. Having said that, he did say he enjoys the work and is quite happy with the benefits the firm offers. He is also a true designer and works in design as a senior designer, so that might have something to do with it (that vs someone who would be in production).
I don't know what your role in the office might be.
As for work, they are definitely pushing the "design" side quite a bit (from my friend's observation) They are willing to take some risks which most corporate firms don't take.
So that's about all I know
mdler stop trying to pad your comment entries......I mean for gods sake you have your own thread already.
haha
my friend just got job with them in orlando, and i was considering because they have a really interesting digital department. they had their own hard and software designed for them by nvidia(which hks now has the patent to) which allows them to display all their 3d projects with realistic lighting and textures in real time, no matter how big the scene is, i talked to one of the principles about it for while. for a large corporate firm, they do some decent design work, and from what i hear they hire designers, not monkeys.
they are doin the new colts stadium. we are doin all the suites and skyboxes.
really Vado? So they are doing the new Cowboys Stadium and the Colts too??
wowsers.....
any images of it yet available Vado?
Thanks for the info guys, I'm still deciding, they have a great office in Dallas. But a move to Dallas from the Chicago area?? I'm still thinking about that one.
Vado that looks like the Cowboys' old stadium, Texas Stadium in Irving - the shadows and the hole in the roof with the trusses spanning the opening are a dead give away. I have to laugh...hks...ha!
HKS won 7 AIA awards at the local and state level in Texas, more than any other firm. mdler should read the AIA ethics about comments regarding other firms.
i think they suck is an ethical violation? really? what are we living in a stalinist country where opinions are met with execution?
Grow up.
Eveyone I know;:::: left the firm...and well that was back in the late 1970's . Lots a luck!
Real Estate and Construction
Ralph Hawkins
President and CEO, HKS Inc.
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Dallas | January 2007
Ralph Hawkins knew it was important that his company, HKS Inc., have a clearly defined set of values. But instead of just imposing them, he enlisted the company’s employees to help document what the values should be. Doing so not only established the 10 values that employees felt had always been present but never formalized, it also gained grassroots support for the values. Once the core values were defined and communicated, Hawkins and management slowly weeded out those employees that didn’t reflect those values. As a result, the firm went from $1 billion in construction five years ago to more than $14 billion in construction last year. Smart Business spoke with the president and CEO of HKS about how he works as a servant leader to his employees.
Let values guide you. Allow individuals to contribute to the company. The way they learn to contribute is through our values, but they have to have access and support to make sure they’re out there building our business up.
We are a firm that has strong values. We support those values, and we hire and we fire on those values. We create a feeling of support and collaboration. We’re always competitive, but internally, we’re very collaborative.
It’s much like a family. If you all have the same values, you tend to strengthen each other... The values are the rules of the game. If the values reflect poor ethics, most likely you’re going to hire a bunch of people with poor ethics.
But if you have high ethical standards and you promote that as a value, you find that everybody has high ethics.
Get people pumped. What motivates people is exciting projects and a great, supportive atmosphere. You don’t have to do a lot of things to motivate a staff internally.
If you’re not doing great projects and you’re not making a lot of money and not doing a lot of the things that make a successful business, people tend to lose their morale. But if you stay focused on your business so the business is successful, and you’re bringing in exciting projects, it almost takes care of itself.
Recruit and nurture young people. Our biggest challenge is getting the very best people. The way we’ve addressed that is we actively recruit students. That provides a lot of energy and excitement to bring that young blood into the firm.
It wouldn’t be a smart thing to be exclusive. Be inclusive with the new generations coming up, and it’s important that you set the stage for them to enjoy and grow in their careers.
Keep them and support them. Our competitors have said, ‘The best people we can get are the ones that we can recruit from HKS after a year or year-anda-half.’ The reason is because they’ve had a lot of training. We probably spend $15,000 to $30,000 a person on training the first couple years, so it’s important that we retain them.
You have to be competitive salary- and benefits-wise, but go a step further. People stay at firms because they’ve built relationships at the firm. We do a lot of celebrating among our staff.
Every few months, we stop work and talk about everything we’ve accomplished over the last few months. We celebrate it, and we have a lot of fun. It bonds us together.
Communicate. If you ask anybody, communication is probably the No. 1 problem at any company. We try to be as interactive as we can with our communication.
We tell them what’s going on, but we also have focus groups. I sit down with 20 staff members and we talk about different issues that have come up, and I get their response. It’s tremendously helpful to feel the pulse of our company.
We also had a full-day retreat. We went through the employee survey, and we talked about the top challenges and the top attributes of HKS, and we got feedback on how we could improve the challenges.
When you ask these young people, they’ll tell you exactly what they think you should do and what they’ve heard works at other companies. It’s a great resource to make us the absolute best place to work. You can’t overcommunicate.
Know how to beat the economy. If the economy downturned, we’re prepared to have an exit strategy. We maintain a very close check on the go/no-go process of what jobs we should pursue and what jobs we shouldn’t pursue. There are jobs that are in a gray area that we choose not to go after because we think it’s not the best use of our staff.
Second, we’re collaborative, and we’ve been able to work with a number of minority firms by outsourcing some of our work. It gives them a great opportunity to learn how they can conduct their own business even better and, as a result, we’re able to do more work without hiring (more) people.
If workload did drop, we have about 10 percent of our staff on a contract basis that we could drop, so we would never have to lay off our staff.
If one building market is up and one is down, we balance it out. If oil prices are down in Texas, and Texas economy is a little slow, it might be up in Florida, or vice versa, so that geographic diversification is important, too. Diversification is our greatest strength.
{Bolded and italicized to emphasize irony.}
Enable your staff. Being a servant leader is key in making sure your staff has the tools and resources.
If you give these people the tools and resources and education and training, they’re going to do great things. To sit back and watch it is phenomenal.
Be prepared to go global. Look at what services you’re providing and what your strategy is. If they’re in a growth strategy, which is a successful strategy, consider going global at some point and working international.
Our clients are beginning to take us globally. We did the Fidelity headquarters here locally, and they called us and said, ‘We need to do a facility in Bangalore,’ so we took off and we went to Bangalore.
Even if you’re not interested in working globally, you may have certain clients that take you globally before you know it, so you better be prepared.
Am I confused here or has the real CEO of a multi-national corporation signed onto an internet message board and drug up ancient posts of people talking shit about his company (on an internet message board) in order to defend the companies honor?
Great!
we'll find out soon i suppose. word travels.
That's exactly my thought, loremipsum. If it's really him, then the economy is rolling along far more crappily than we all thought.
HKS has fired a LOT of people in the downturn.
I know of at least 80 back in March.
well....for a stadium that had the largest budget ever....missed design opportunity. Not really surprised though.
I'm spending my Monday waiting by the phone for all these fabulous jobs I applied to.
Wasting away today with two bottles of Moët et Chandona pack of Dunhill International Lights and a computer queued up with nothing but Phillip Glass, Kronos Quartet and Debussy.
I'm not sure if the James Dean photo montage hurts or helps this piece. But this has to be on of the most beautiful songs ever written.
I maybe a scumbag with not values.. But I am an honest scumbag. At least you know what to expect.
It sort of pisses me off that people here are giving HKS a hard time. Yes, some of their buildings in the 80's were really boring but keep in mind that even high-design firms have done their fair share of schlock work. I see the work their firm has done in the past 5 years improve much from what they have put out in the previous 15. They are getting better and I can't fault someone, or a firm, for trying to improve.
For every crappy project there is a client or contractor who keeps taking $$$ out of the project budget or time out of the project schedule. Architecture firms alone should not be expected to bear the brunt of lackluster buildings.
While architects play major role in shaping the built environment, so do bankers, legislators, developers and contractors. Why does no one attack Trammel Crow, Cousins or Jamestown for shitty design?? They are the ones responsible for funding/developing/leasing the majority of the commercial real estate ventures in the US.
What about the financing institution that mandates that a developer NOT use a particular 'high-design' architect because their firms projects consistently come in +10% over budget and beyond the schedule date?
If you're going to shit on HKS I ask all of you: Which firm of comparative size does better design work, treats their employees well, has been in business for 50+ years and is going to give out bonuses at the end of this year?
You make a very, very good point, marlowe. Trammel Crow and every other developer who see the built environment as nothing more than a cash register are far more responsible for the accepted level of crap in our built environment than most design firms.
I still don't believe for a moment, though, that rhawkins is really who he says he is.
I don't know if they meet every one of your requirements but I would answer with RMJM on the terms of better design work and comparative size (multiple international offices i mean).
(no I don't work there)
It's our job to take the punches that developers, contractors, etc. throw at us and still manage to produce a nice building. To throw up our hands and say, this project sucks because of the client and contractor....to me that says that we didn't put enough thought into it during the design process.
liberty....McNiel was a HKS boy along with all the partners at ADP...and William Wild...
I agree with the last several comments. In regards to the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, the client began negotiating with Dallas. We sited it on two locations in Dallas...one next to Reunion Arena next to downtown and the second location at Fair Park. The mayor and city council at that time was dysfunctional and unable to meet the deadlines that they had agreed to with the Cowboys. Finally the City of Arlington approached the Cowboy organizaiton with a financial package to lure them to Arlington. At this point, HKS was well within the bowl design although the exterior skin was still in development due to the lack of a site.
The decison was more political than developer or architectural. However, the Cowboys are popular both in Dallas and Ft. Worth so the proximity to the two major population centers was not entirely bad. The stadium is achieving great financial success and bringing alot of retail and restaurant traffic to Arlington.
The stadium is also the most energy efficient stadium built. Natural light comes through clerestory and endwalls as well as a soft white light from the canvassed retractable roof. Natural ventilation is availabe at the end walls and of course the roof. Parking is shared with the Ball Park and UTA which reduced the parking requirement.
Overall the project has been a big success and has recieved good reivews.
HKS is celebrating our 70th year of practice. This economy has been tough on all large firms both domestically and internationally. The AIA believes there are over 35,000 unemployed architect in the US. the UK is probably as bad if not worse.
As architects we need to all stick together and help develop practices that share the work to keep our profession alive. Sustainability is making our profession relative in a strong way. Be a part of it.
When I first got on this discussion thread, I found the input productive and professional. I still find it so, except for a couple rude people. Fortunately, they don't represnet the majority of our profession. I am signing off and letting my participation end at this point. Good luck to you all.
Ralph Hawkins
CEO
HKS
Interesting,
When was the last time a CEO of a major architectural firm signed on to Archinect for a discussion?
Never in my recollection.
d
they are using aliases to avoid any ethics violations...
considering blog sites are usually completely anonymous unless the user provides their personal information, who knows? my guess would be there are not many CEO's are on archinet, but i'm sure if we do have a few CEO's log on here and if they were to present their identities on archinet, most would be greeted like Mr. Hawkins, with disbelief.
Don't mess with Texas.
marlowe, while i respect your opinion, let's review what we know:
1. this thread is two years old - at least - and other threads hawkins drew up are older - 5 years old.
2. these topics - if there was a dead file pile, would have most certainly found themselves there.
3. hawkins brought these threads back to life, and made some assertions regarding code of ethics violations, of which i am still trying to determine.
4. saying a firm sucks, is merely an opinion, an anonymous one at that.
5. as for slamming hks, i don't recall you or anyone else having a problem with this board slamming Rem or anyone else working for China. not equating human rights with land use abuse or touting a questionable EPA policy, instituted under Bush - to give the appearance of sustainability - that is no longer in effect, but the point remains Rem does good work, however his work in China - and his apology tour is/was ridiculous. so, for a firm to stand on "values" and then to build for a guy who lacks values, is also worthy of criticism. the dallas stadium is rip for criticism.
6. as for their other work, i see they do good work, not disputing that, they seem on par with ellerbe and others.
7. i would expect that a ceo would not come here and write that working for them is an awful choice, but i would almost certainly expect that it's not as rosy as he'd make it out to be. i would guess that for someone outside of that culture, and going to work there, in dallas, it would be a difficult situation. i would also guess that those recently unemployed or soon to be unemployed, would have a lot more to say.
8. as for banks financing projects; ultimately firms choose what and who they want to work with, values remember, and most firms - large firms - will sell values to employees and clients, but the bottom line rules. in the end, when the chips are down, and the project hangs in the balance, and the decision as to whether or not your kid gets the gi joe with the kung fu grip, is on the line, values go or get bent, and the project stays.
9. still no comment from faia hawkins on the layoffs thread, and knowing that he spent part of his day typing in HKS in the search part of archinect, you know that HKS came up several times in that thread.
10. aside from the crit of the design, theres this bit|
"When originally announced by franchise owner Jerry Jones in 2004, the plans for a new stadium for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys carried a price tag of $650 million dollars. The financing sources included: $325 million dollars to be generated by sales tax increases in Arlington, TX; a $76 million dollar loan from the NFL; and funds raised by the Dallas Cowboys through the now imploded auction-rate securities market. Though Jerry Jones is Seeking Investors for Naming Rights to new Dallas Cowboys Stadium scheduled to be ready for the 2009 NFL season, on October 27th, 2008, Jerry Jones hosted a variety of banks at the new stadium in an attempt to raise an additional $350 million dollars in financing to complete the project."
all of that prior to the bust last year. now is that HKS fault? no, but again, jerry jones is a known narcissist, and therefor know for having zero to no values.
11. i am sure those firms you listed would gladly get shit on here, perhaps someone should let their ceo's know where to post, so we can all "bash" them.
Ralph.....
If it is you, thanks for taking time out of your busy life to right the wrong of the world.
HKS does not suck, it's done some great projects at home and abroad. But what can't be overlooked is the staff reductions that have taken place since October 2008. There was no rhyme or reason to the reductions that we could ascertain. I mean a PA/PM/ID is busting their ass one day on a project, then after lunch a phone call from HR...
Too many PMs and PAs, associates and vice-presidents let go. Employees that would have worked weekends for you or late nights away from loved ones, if you needed us to. Lots of great, talented, and passionate people. All let go in groups...
Sorry if some of us sound a little bitter, a little frustrated. A year or so ago, we never thought we'd feel resentment towards your firm. But we see that life goes on for the folks on McKinney Avenue. Retrospect. CanStruction. I'm sure the company gala was another rip-roaring hootany.
Well it's business, nothing personal.
Those hundreds, maybe thousands that have been let go have had to struggle to find something decent to make ends meet, to pay for mortgages, car payments and other bills. Well it's their fault, they should've been better prepared. Shit happens even when you're being led down a primrose path.
It's a good experience for some of us. We now know that no firm is perfect, they all seem to have faults as they are run by humans who have agendas and allegiances, as well as some room for error and oversight.
HKS was a great place to work for, really it was. I won't buy into the auto-hate for the firm that some reserve for it. I'm sure RTKL, Gensler, HOK, SOM, and others have their own hate groups and detractors. It's part of success, you'll get a periphery of "fans" who write letters into the Dallas Morning News praising the virtues of HKS and questioning why aren't they designing the Dallas Convention Center Hotel??? Also with that success you get the detractors of the firm, who post on this bbs.
It's business, nothing personal...
By the way, are you still on the bus?
nice job blackflag, well done.
Blackflag,
This recession has caused many firms to downsize as evidenced by the AIA Large Firm Round Table. As a professional service firm, our major expense is unfortunately our people. When I saw clients stop paying us in August of 2008, I was concerned. Our accounts recievables went up over 30% in that one month. Clients had stopped paying. the more that I investigated the economy, it look like it was in for a major crash in the credit markets. Our developer friends were telling us the money to design or build buildings was gone.
As we projected out in 3 month intervals, it was showing us that we had to reduce staff to have a viable business. Although this is one of the most unpleasant things to do. I projected the numbers and waited until October to see if things were improved. As you know by October, the stock market crashed and we went into a full bore recession. We felt the projections for staff reductions had to be proactive vs. reactive. I formed a committee of eight people that worked with the department heads and the regional offices. We began to list all staff and then ranked them on a number of criteria.
We tried to make it as fair as we could, but I know we made some mistakes. It was difficult, because these were all good people. The fact is, I had to think of the company first. All of us were devastated to lose some of the staff we laid off. Including retiring and terminating some principals among us.
Now that I look back, it was a very positive approach to be proactive vs. reactive to the lay offs. We literally would have had no work for people to work on if we had kept the people. That would have been costly. We cut before that happened. The firm was able to reduce expenses including staff so that we remained financially strong with good cash flow. We will also distribute bonuses this year, not alot but everyone will get a bonus in the firm.
It hurt us because we did care tremendously about the staff and there is not one that I wouldn't welcome back. In fact we are going to celebrate in a big way, when we bring that first person back.
In the last month or so our work has picked up and could even anticipate hiring some 3 to 5 year experienced people back. We have recently been commissioned on an new Four Seasons Hotel in Florida, 25 airports in Mexico, a large 700K SF clinic in Utah, Minnesota Vikings Stadium, and several other major projects.
We are now planning our Shanghai office by the end of the year, with several new projects in China. We remain financially strong and are even evaluating a couple of mergers/acquistions to strengthen some of our markets. It has been a tough year for all of us, but my heart and thoughts are with those that we lost. We have a website called Team ExHKS on LinkedIn that I have encouraged our alums to register so that we can stay in touch with them on opportunities. It is business, like you say, not personal.
Ralph
I can confirm that this is Ralph. The tone of the letter is consistent with postings on his blog. I find it very interesting that a CEO of such a large firm is following archinect. Just shows that you never know who is reading.
Dear mr rhawkins.....can you tell me the other three employees who jumped ship while working on the Pima College Project in Arizona besides William Wild and Doug McNeil. If you can I will know you are real.
snooker.
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/sports/25stadium.html?_r=2
" Years after a wave of construction brought publicly financed stadiums costing billions of dollars to cities across the country, taxpayers are once again being asked to reach into their pockets.
From New Jersey to Ohio to Arizona, the stadiums were sold as a key to redevelopment and as the only way to retain sports franchises. But the deals that were used to persuade taxpayers to finance their construction have in many cases backfired, the result of overly optimistic revenue assumptions and the recession. ...
But sales tax receipts have fallen so fast in the last year that [Cincinnati's Hamilton] county is now scrambling to bridge a $14 million deficit in its sales tax fund. The public schools, which deferred taking their share for years, want their money.
The teams have not volunteered to rewrite their leases. So in the coming weeks, the county plans to cut basic services, lower its legal bills and drain a bond reserve fund with no plan for paying it back."
Does anyone know what percentage of the sports venue industry HOK has done? I tried to look up the stats but couldn't find them.
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