Expressions like “time is of the essence” or “time is money,” reflect our deep connection between time and productivity. While time is undeniably valuable, it’s our brain health that underpins how effectively we use it.
Our HKS Atlanta team members recently endeavored to practice brain health together with guidance from our partners at the Center for BrainHealth® at the University of Texas at Dallas, who we first collaborated with in 2022 when HKS employees around the world participated in the study Creating a Brain Healthy Workplace.
Place, process, policy, and technology must work together to support our brain health, especially as we navigate challenges that may hinder peak performance at work. By applying the Center for BrainHealth®’s proven strategies and learnings from our firm-wide research, our Atlanta team explored how workplace design and behavior change can enhance brain health outcomes, and perhaps even maximize time and productivity.
During the course of six months, 85 HKS Atlanta embraced the 9-5-3 framework for better brain health — nine brain health strategies activated in a workplace designed with five brain healthy affordances while promoting three brain healthy habits — and examined behavioral changes. What we found has the power to influence how our team can improve our ability to work creatively and efficiently, and how we can be better designers of workplace environments in the future.
Multitasking, or the act of performing multiple tasks simultaneously, has become a routine habit as we juggle various projects. However, research consistently tells us multitasking has detrimental effects such as chronic stress, a decline in fluid intelligence, the atrophy of brain regions dedicated to critical thinking, and increased likelihood of errors. We may get a false sense of productivity from multitasking, but science tells us we actually get more quality work done when we single-task.
Multitasking was one of the brain health challenges that Atlanta employees tackled. We introduced a team competition focused on single tasking to motivate behavioral change. Although the competition only lasted for a month, the office reported a consistent decline in multitasking frequency across the six-month study period – a 17.5% decrease compared to baseline.
Another myth of productivity is the idea that taking breaks hinders efficiency. In reality, research indicates that breaks may mitigate cognitive performance impairment, enhance alertness, and improve various measures of well-being. Our survey results from Atlanta demonstrate a significant positive correlation between the average number of brain breaks taken throughout the day and the average number of focused tasks employees completed per day. Breaks seem to regenerate the mental energy needed for completing focus tasks. We also found that when we have the mental energy for required tasks, we feel a sense of accomplishment – when we take a moment to be mindful of our needs, we experience the fruit of the return it yields.
Supportive Workplace Design and Culture
Maintaining peak brain health is an ongoing and collective effort that is hard to do by yourself. Brain health intersects with physical, social, and policy dimensions of the workplace. By adopting healthier behaviors alongside our colleagues, encouraging stronger institutional support through policy, promoting greater alignment between space and cognitive needs, and integrating support from technology, we’ll achieve measurable outcomes.
A brain healthy workplace requires an office designed with intent – creating space affordances specifically designed for the tasks they support best. From triangulating activity mapping, pulse surveys, and focus group data, we found that certain activities are best when clustered together and some when spread out. The most effective spaces for each workplace activity include different space types that offer different levels of privacy or openness. We have yet to test the effectiveness of these space types on performance outcomes but recognize that providing a variety of spaces can accommodate our different needs and preferences.
Our Atlanta office is composed of a diverse collective; we need each other to build and strengthen brain healthy habits. The efforts in Atlanta showed increased satisfaction in habit building – we like working on brain health together, not in silos. A brain healthy workplace includes collective efforts for cognitive restoration and community connection, and we recognize an on-going need for people to lead by example and contribute to building and maintaining a culture that successfully supports brain health. Over time, we anticipate that brain healthy habits will become more ingrained in our everyday practices and position us to deliver lasting benefits to our clients and communities.
HKS’ Sheba Ross Shares Her Vision for the Future of Convention Centers
IMPACT Atlanta – Studying the Intersections of Culture, Access, and Place
IMPACT Atlanta – Studying the Intersections of Culture, Access, and Place
By HKS
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One of HKS’ many design fellowships, the Southeast Fellowship (SDF) is a design charrette that seeks to cultivate emerging talent, simulate innovative design approaches and provide service to nearby communities. Each year, the SDF rotates between the HKS Atlanta, Miami, and Orlando offices to offer regional design thinking for local design challenges. The SDF pairs HKS design professionals with university students selected from some of the region’s top design programs for architecture, interior design, urban design, and other related programs.
The 2024 Fellowship focused on the intersections of culture, mobility, and place along Buford Highway in Atlanta. HKS collaborated with the City of Brookhaven and local organizations to understand the places and people around Buford Highway, to develop a hypothetical design prompt for a cross-disciplinary response providing real IMPACT.
Background and Prompt
The city of Atlanta is well-known for its diversity. Residents and visitors alike can experience a blend of cultures and traditions that have developed in the city’s built environment, culinary destinations, and social interactions. The epitome of this cultural melting pot can be experienced along Buford Highway, a road extending northeast out from Atlanta that is specifically renowned for its ethnic diversity.
Although coined as the “Cultural Corridor” of the city, the street and its surrounding areas often lack elements that celebrate the rich tapestry of cultures defined in the area, not to mention issues regarding safety, accessibility, and connectivity. This year’s fellows were asked the following question: “How do you evolve a multi-cultural vehicle-centric corridor to better serve its community —to celebrate the community’s sense of place yet maintain and amplify its character?”
Design Challenge and Values
Five design teams addressed several design challenges during the 2024 Fellowship, formulating their proposals around design values of cultural celebration, wellness and universal access, placemaking and activation, environmental sustainability and uniqueness.
A Cohesive Community Hub
Team D-Fusion: Andrea Aristiguieta, Raj Kachalia, Angelina Brier
Team D-Fusion’s proposal aims to revitalize Northeast Plaza into a cohesive community hub that celebrates its cultural diversity while also enhancing and expanding its current programs without losing its character. The masterplan revolves around two key connection spines. The first is a lively pedestrian retail spine linking Briarwood Park to the Peachtree Creek Greenway, serving as a new gateway to the Northeast Plaza and integrating current food, retail, and health programs. The second spine focuses on neighborhood needs, incorporating essential everyday services like laundry, groceries, and local shops. A notable addition to the site is the Community & Resource Center and a Multi-Cultural Arts Center, which will act as a portal between the Plaza and the Peachtree Creek Greenway, connecting the Plaza and Greenway from both sides.
Team Microsofties: Iman Khan, Nicholas Nunnelley, German Castillo
Team Microsofties’ Time Along the Greenway proposal explores a gradual transition from urban to ecological, expanding the potential for Buford Highway’s Northeast Plaza to connect with the nearby Greenway. The project carefully considers existing programs and community needs, balancing the site’s rich cultural heritage with its proximity to natural spaces. An existing farmer’s market is expanded into a covered, open-air community market, which steps down — creating opportunities for pockets of communal space — toward Peachtree Creek, which runs alongside the Greenway. The Greenway is divided into sections based on the character of nearby programs: Urban, Natural, Public, Active, and Residential. Growth potentials for this framework along the entire Greenway are also considered, providing a clear basis for future development.
Team Urban Collective: Abigail Thompson, Salvatore Costanzo, Franklin Novo
Team Urban Collective’s proposaltakes the goals of the Peachtree Creek Greenway a step further through the design values of Wellness and Placemaking & Activation. The project aims to create a place for rest, a place for physical activity, and a place for community interaction. After studying what areas have intense sun exposure and what areas have harsh boundaries with residential communities, the team identified several moments of interest. This resulted in a greenway proposal divided into four different areas: the community area, the play area, the rest area, and the art walk. Proposed program elements include a farmers market area, a community garden, a rock-climbing hill, skateboard pump track, sculpture lookouts and basketball courts. Providing visitors with comfortable resting areas and smooth, eco-friendly surfaces ensure ease of movement for all users to engage with exciting new activities along the Peachtree Creek Greenway.
Team Agora: Elena Passoni, Matthew Ngango, Robin Woo
Team Agora’s Project Gateway proposal aims to revitalize the Northeast Plaza and improve its connection to the intersection of Buford Highway and Briarwood Road. This area offers opportunities to link existing residential neighborhoods to the plaza and create engaging community spaces. The main objectives are to address the misaligned intersection and shift the focus from a car-centric environment to one accessible and welcoming to everyone while celebrating local culture and providing safe public spaces. The proposal realigns the intersection to enhance pedestrian and vehicular safety. This change will enable new architectural developments at the intersection’s corners and improve pedestrian pathways leading into the plaza and along Buford Highway. With a focus on serving the area’s large Hispanic community, the project introduces vibrant public spaces that replace a massive paved parking lot to foster community interaction and support local businesses.
Enhancing Community Well-being Through Integrated Urban Design
Team III: Armin Piriyaei, Neel Patel, Hao Zhang
Team III’s proposal explores strategies to enhance mental health, physical activity, and cultural engagement by reimagining public spaces in a diverse, multi-regional area. The project focuses on relocating the farmers market to a central position that connects the creek, greenway, and parking lot, while also linking three distinct regions. Additionally, staggered steps mitigate the area’s steep slope, enhancing accessibility and usability. The proposal introduces five levels of development, providing flexible spaces for retail, cultural events, sports, theaters, and student performances, particularly around the creek. The project aims to create a vibrant, inclusive community space that fosters health, cultural celebration, and safety, while strengthening connections across diverse neighborhoods. This holistic approach to urban design revitalizes public spaces and enhances the overall quality of life for all community members.
Laura Pike Seeley, Mary Catherine Smith, and Chasa Toliver-Leger, co-founders and co-chairs of HKS’ Parents & Caregivers Affinity and Inclusion Group (AIG), understand the stress of working parents firsthand. Emerging from the pandemic, they felt the culmination of exhaustion from full-time work, full-time childcare and the emotional drainage of COVID-induced anxiety.
“There was no break. For parents, it was like, ‘You’ve survived this apocalyptic nightmare while keeping your family afloat by working fulltime, educating and caring for your young children, and trying to stay sane while being isolated in your home for months and months… now, pretend it never happened; back to the grind,” said Toliver-Leger, HKS Senior Public Relations Manager and mother of a four-year-old son.
Supporting Parents and Caregivers with Flex Work
In 2021, HKS formally launched its Flexible Work Experience Program (FWx), which is still in practice today. FWx allows HKS employees to “flex” their work schedules to best serve their personal needs while balancing the needs of their clients and colleagues. Many employees work remotely two days per week and flex their hours for drop-off or pick-up duty, extracurriculars, and summer activities. Hours can be adjusted week to week as responsibilities change, and as a global firm in time zones worldwide, employees can make up hours at any time.
One day at the close of a 2022 meeting, Pike Seeley connected with Smith and Toliver-Leger over parenting and the struggle of finding balance between familial and work responsibilities.
“We were venting…talking about how it often felt like we were drowning keeping everything together. And that’s with flexible work schedules and understanding managers,” said Pike Seeley, HKS Knowledge Program Lead and mother to two young boys.
“And then we thought, ‘We’re not the only ones feeling this pressure. How can we create solutions — or at least a community of people in similar situations — to help our firm become even more supportive, inclusive, and accommodating of working parents?,” said Smith, HKS Senior Communications Manager and mother of two young children.
“How can we create solutions…to help our firm become even more supportive, inclusive, and accommodating of working parents?”
With that conversation, the idea for the HKS Parents & Caregivers AIG was born. Led by its three co-chairs with Executive Sponsor Bernita Beikmann, HKS Chief Delivery Officer, the group has grown to nearly 100 members firmwide.
Empowering Employees and Spreading Awareness
The Parents & Caregivers AIG’s mission is to support and empower employees with caregiving responsibilities while acknowledging and spreading awareness of the challenges they face to drive positive cultural change within the HKS organization and beyond.
Most recently, the AIG sponsored its second annual “Bring Your Kids to Work at Week,” in which offices across the firm invited children, grandchildren and nieces/nephews of employees to come in for a day of design-focused fun, games and activities. Most of HKS’ 29 offices worldwide hosted unique events such as a baking challenge in Shanghai, a “Build Your Own City” in Chicago, and a 3D printing exhibition in Dallas.
The group also hosted a firmwide Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion virtual event earlier this year featuring Stephanie Telles, Founder and CEO of Otoño Consulting, who talked to attendees about harnessing the power of caregiving in the corporate world. Members of the AIG also shared personal experiences on parenthood struggles, wins and finding balance in an unpredictable world.
“Every week you find a different balance depending on the varying needs of your job and your family,” Tina Duncan, HKS Director of Code and Regulations and mother of two, shared during the panel discussion. “You have to remind yourself, ‘I’m doing the very best I can on this given day, and that’s all I can do.’ It helps to know we can lean on this community and support each other through it all.”
And the support is working. In the group’s annual sentiment survey of HKS employees, 91% of parents and caregivers were “satisfied with the flexibility provided by the company,” and 98% felt their “manager is understanding and accommodating when it comes to [their] parental and caregiving responsibilities.” In both 2023 and 2024, HKS was awarded as a Best Place for Working Parents, a ranking based on ten beneficial company policies for parents including paid time off, parental leave for mothers and fathers, nursing benefits, flexible hours and more.
“HKS has been flexing for a long time- way before we gave it a name,” said Sidney Smith, Phoenix Office Director and father to twin girls. “That flexibility has allowed me to make every single one of my daughters’ athletic events — that’s been a huge win for me. I didn’t have that growing up; I’m thankful for a firm that knows what’s important.”
Bringing Perspective to Design Projects
The AIG also serves in an advisory role to design teams working on projects related to parenting and caregiving responsibilities. Since parenting happens everywhere, the AIG provides guidance on projects ranging from health to education to sports and beyond.
Michelle Carroll, HKS Chief Human Resources Officer, a mother of two and caregiver for her mother, said that when she returned to work from parental leave, she noticed a project team doing a pin-up for a major sports venue.
“Their brilliant idea was to create women’s restrooms that were much larger, since women’s lines at events are always much longer than men’s,” Carroll said. “I asked them, ‘What are you thinking for wellness rooms?’”
After a brief conversation, the design team brought in Carroll and several other employees with breastfeeding experience, who advised them on necessities and nice-to-haves for lactation rooms in the major sports facility.
HKS currently has seven Affinity and Inclusion Groups: Parents & Caregivers, PRIDE, BLACK Collective, Mindful: Neurodiversity & Mental Health, Women in Architecture, Asian & Pacific Islanders and Hispanic & Latin with more forming. These groups are working across the firm to enhance policies, provide support to colleagues and offer their unique perspectives to strengthen HKS’ work.
“HKS’ vision is to become the most influential firm in our industry, and that starts with investing in our people,” said Sam Mudro, HKS President & CFO and father of two children. “The Parents & Caregivers AIG highlights the needs of some of our most dedicated and talented employees. By aligning our policies with business objectives, we make their lives simpler and more fulfilling, which, in turn, empowers them to invest more passion and energy into their projects and clients.”
HKS Dallas parents and their children gather during Bring Your Kids to Work Day 2024.
Though the Parents & Caregivers AIG is only two years old, its efforts have already brought forth positive change firmwide, and the group hopes to do much more in the future.
“Driving home from the office after Bring Your Kids to Work Day, my 6-year-old daughter Caroline and I were reflecting on the day. She said, ‘Mommy, when I grow up, I want to work at HKS with you,’” Smith said. “In those moments, you know you’re making a difference by setting an example for the next generation, and you know everything will be okay.”
UAB Health Medical West Hospital
Project
UAB Health Medical West Hospital
A Transformative Environment with a Touch of Southern Hospitality
Bessemer, Alabama
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The Challenge
UAB Health Medical West replaces a 1960s hospital with a modern, experience-centered facility that serves rural communities. The project goal was to design a warm, inviting and technologically advanced care environment within a tight budget and enable new ways of operating and delivering care.
HKS’ collaborated with local design partner, KPS, who had previous experience with UAB, to build trust with the tight-knit staff and develop an approach for designing a warm, comforting environment that exuded the southern hospitality they are known for.
The Design Solution
The design team embraced the unique natural qualities of the site’s pond, trees and steep terrain. Trails for walking and running around the pond and throughout the campus help connect the greater community to a health and wellness destination. The building’s fully glazed exterior reflects the 125-foot pine trees and natural wetlands surrounding it, eliciting a sense of oneness with nature.
The southern hospitality-inspired interior design includes a front porch atmosphere in the lobby, complete with rocking chairs and views outside. Warm wood tones and stonework serve as a base, and each floor features distinct botanical elements of native plant species and complementary color palettes.
The Cahaba lily — a rare species of spider lily that blooms for only two weeks each May and grows in running water — is featured throughout the ground floor and lobby. The team hired a plant life photographer to take pictures of the blooms and other native plant species to correspond with each floor’s theme. The budget only allowed for one image per floor, so the team selected the perfect photo that could be cropped in various ways for printed glass, wall graphics and artwork.
The lobby’s ceiling features petal-shaped lights and long curved panels that mimic the Cahaba lily. The shape is then reflected onto the floor pattern just as it would reflect onto the running water where they grow. The botanical graphics that distinguish each floor offer warming pops of color that can lift a person’s mood — a crucial outcome of biophilic design strategies in often stressful health care settings.
“When you walk into this hospital it’s really jaw-dropping but in this really welcoming and warm way.”
Dr. Cynthia Brown, OBGYN, UAB Medical West
The Design Impact
The staff family is extremely proud of the new facility and are actively putting in place new ways of working and delivering patient care for the rural communities surrounding Bessemer, Alabama.
Project Features
Nine story hospital – 412,000 square feet (125,577 sm)
Seven story medical office building – 127,000 square feet (38,709 sm)
HKS’ Atlanta Office Design Reimagines the Future of Work
HKS’ Atlanta Office Design Reimagines the Future of Work
By
Amy Eagle
Kathleen M. O’Donnell
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What is the office for?
This important question is a driving force behind the new Atlanta office of global design firm HKS.
Responding to the extraordinary shift toward hybrid work worldwide, HKS looked to its own real estate portfolio and employees’ evolving needs to reimagine the future of work. Located in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, the office is the first of several at HKS to undergo a holistic real estate analysis and commercial interior design process targeted at creating and implementing innovative post-pandemic workplace strategies.
The project began when the HKS Atlanta team identified a need to relocate from Downtown Atlanta. Surveys and strategy workshops — led by HKS’ real estate experts, designers and researchers — revealed that employees desired an office central to where they lived, closer to their local client base and in a community where they aspired to build more connections.
The team determined the ideal setting would be located along a major thoroughfare, Peachtree Road, and situated within the Atlanta tree canopy with views across the city. With these criteria in mind, the team worked with an existing real estate client to lease a 9,800-square-foot space in Buckhead.
A Connected, Choice-Driven Environment
When designing the new space, HKS dove deeper into this central question: what is the office for? Collaborative visioning sessions resulted in a shared ideal: the office is not just for work or productivity — it is for people. This workspace would be for HKS employees, clients and community partners.
Designed with a vision to “mirror the city,” the HKS Atlanta office accommodates a contemporary hybrid workforce and invites community members in for engagement gatherings, workshops and events.
“We were thinking about a holistic work environment where we come together to create, collaborate, meet with clients and produce and deliver our work,” said HKS Atlanta Office Director Julie Volosin. “We host a lot of client meetings, tours, industry events and gatherings here in the office. It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to share what we’re doing to push the limits of innovative workspace design.”
The design team conducted surveys, work sessions and interviews with HKS Atlanta staff members, analyzed workplace data and ultimately devoted a significant portion of the new space to collaboration, less to private workstations.
The new workplace features an “idea theater” for creative work sessions and events, “rapid ops” rooms for project teams on deadline and havens where colleagues can work or take breaks, which HKS’ industry-leading research on brain health shows are critical to well-being and performance.
The design draws on HKS research about effective work ecosystems and provides several types of environments employees can choose from to accomplish their best work.
“For a creative field, it matters that we can change our ambience very quickly and really leverage it to bring our creative solutions,” said Sheba Ross, HKS Global Practice Director, Cities and Communities, who is based in Atlanta. “The fact that reflection and very vibrant collaboration can coexist is something that is a differentiator at the Atlanta office.”
With digital equity and sensory comfort as key design drivers, the space ensures a connected, accessible working experience for all team members and external collaborators.
“If there’s anything the past few years taught us, it’s that we need community. And one of the benefits of the new HKS Atlanta office is that it creates community in different ways,” said Ross. “Our spaces are multipurpose. You could bring in a team and have a huddle together while also engaging with an online group. All our technology has been set up in a way that allows seamless collaboration.”
Ethan Hopkins, Job Captain, HKS Atlanta, said that having a choice of work environments helps learning and mentorship come naturally in the office.
“Every day that I come in, it’s just a different experience because of different individuals that I sit next to. I don’t just learn what they’re working on, but who they are a little bit better,” Hopkins said.
Measurable ESG Impact
The new HKS Atlanta office is much more than an innovative commercial workplace design that prioritizes employee choice and community connection. It is the product of a well-designed real estate process with tangible connections to business objectives and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals.
The square footage of the new office is 38% less than that of the previous office, enabling HKS Atlanta to redirect financial resources towards engaging talent, developing business market growth and strengthening social impact projects.
With a 60% Average Daily Occupancy program and planning approach, the space can support large fluctuations in headcount within an efficient office footprint. The office has supported growth from 55 full-time employees (FTEs) to 85 FTEs, decreasing the rentable square footage per FTE from 178 to 115.
“Through studying how we work and monitoring our work patterns, we’ve reduced our real estate footprint. That saves us significant real estate costs long term,” Volosin said.
A life cycle analysis of the project revealed the office design has a 23% lower embodied carbon footprint compared to other office spaces in a benchmarking study conducted by the Oakland, California-based Carbon Leadership Forum. The HKS Atlanta office incorporates high-performance systems and healthy materials to reduce carbon footprint and improve employee well-being, and the firm is pursuing LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum certifications for the space. HKS is also pursuing a Brain Health certification for the office, which will set a new measurable standard for workplaces the firm creates for itself and clients in the future.
The design’s emphasis on supporting people is underpinned by a commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (J.E.D.I.) in HKS policies and programming. Since opening, the Atlanta office has attracted new, diverse talent; 50% of new hires based in Atlanta over the last year identified as a minority and the office has risen to the third highest firmwide for the number of languages spoken.
The surge in multicultural representation in the Atlanta office has led to new market revenue streams and advanced the office’s Citizen HKS public interest design programs that help develop vibrant, socially equitable neighborhoods.
According to Ross a multicultural, multigenerational, multidisciplinary staff ensures projects are considered from a variety of perspectives.
“It’s our ability to listen and adapt and connect the dots that makes the difference,” she said.
The HKS Atlanta office is a model for resilience in office development and design, a necessity in today’s ever-changing landscape of work. It exemplifies that an innovative design process that includes people from all levels of an organization can contribute to business goals, create connections across boundaries and even help answer profound questions like “what is the office for?”
Based on the success of the Atlanta workplace, the firm has implemented similar solutions in the real estate and design process for new HKS offices in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, New York City and Washington D.C., with more to come.
Volosin said HKS Atlanta staff continue to discover new ways to use their prototypical workplace and they’re eager to share what they’ve learned with their HKS colleagues and the entire industry.
“We’re so excited to be on the forefront of realizing what new work environments can be.”
The awards were officially announced at AIA24, the AIA’s national conference in Washington, D.C.
Norman Morgan, HKS Partner and Global Practice Director, Health, said this high level of excellence is due to HKS designers and researchers taking the time to listen and provide guidance to clients.
“They aren’t coming to us just to put a building together,” Morgan said. “We’re here to make a difference in the projects we do – to change the experience of patients and staff for the better.”
Emory Musculoskeletal Institute
The EMSK project included extensive research into the design of the facility’s clinic spaces and operating rooms (ORs).
Deborah Wingler, PhD, HKS Global Practice Leader, Applied Research, said HKS and Emory Healthcare made strategic decisions early in the project that allowed them to “lay the groundwork for being able to thoughtfully test the efficacy of design decisions following occupancy.”
The team collected data from existing Emory Healthcare clinics to use in evaluating the design of a new clinic module implemented at EMSK. And they partnered with the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing at Clemson University to conduct a functional performance evaluation of the new facility’s ORs.
The clinic module study demonstrated the value of co-locating clinic spaces with related specialty services, such as imaging. Staff rated the new clinic module highly in terms of visibility and travel distances, despite the module’s larger footprint. The OR design was shown to reduce surgical flow disruptions that can lead to adverse events for patients.
Wingler said, “We’re finding that some of these design considerations are making a meaningful, measurable difference.”
Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU Children’s Tower
The Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU Children’s Tower vertically and horizontally expands the Children’s Pavilion to create a full-service free-standing destination for pediatric healthcare. The 16-story tower creates a visual landmark for the VCU Health campus.
Kate Renner, HKS Studio Practice Leader, Health, said the project team focused on “creating spaces that can be both an oasis for healing and a beacon for health.”
The team took a collaborative approach to designing the Children’s Tower. Project stakeholders include more than 300 health system team members and more than 125 community members – including pediatric patients and their families – who provided input over the course of the building’s design and construction.
“It’s truly an honor to be recognized at the national level for this project that really does connect intent to impact,” Renner said. “Thank you to everyone who participated and joined us on this journey.”
University of Georgia Baseball Stadium Expansion
Revamped Baseball Locker Room Gives University of Georgia Bulldogs Program New Bite
Athens, GA, USA
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The Challenge
The University of Georgia baseball program wanted to completely change the look of their current locker rooms, to make the space more player-centric and elevate it to one of the best, if not the best, in the highly competitive Southeastern Conference. HKS designers faced the challenge of creating the new locker room space within a limited existing footprint by eliminating deficiencies in the space plan, which will allow more capacity for the players. Comfortable and vibrant player-centric spaces are vital in supporting and exciting players, fostering team unity and attracting recruits.
The Design Solution
The HKS design team responded to the existing conditions by considering the athlete first. They spent a great deal of time analyzing how the players use the building to support the well-being, training, team building and performance, and how these components come together as part of the new strategy for this facility.
Based on that analysis, new field access points were added for frictionless movement from the locker room/mudroom to the field to increase efficiency in the facility. The design also limited demolition in these spaces, which helped to correct layout deficiencies and utilize as much of the existing footprint as possible for the required program.
The design of the locker and team meeting spaces emphasizes the importance of the athlete’s story of feeling a part of something bigger than themselves. That experience is curated by engaging the whole athlete and building a deeper connection to collegiate pride and the team. The play of red and crisp white lighting, elements of contrast, and volume of space create drama and bring layers of energy for the athletes.
The locker room layout is crafted to foster interaction between players, promoting camaraderie as they prepare to head out to the field. The integrated sound system allows for player control over playlists that can infuse the atmosphere with energy and motivation through music. HKS’s sensory design approach encompasses lighting, textures and sound to envelop the players in an immersive world. Dramatic, layered lighting can shift to match the intensity of the team, setting the stage for game day. Every aspect of the design is supported by brand elements, ensuring a cohesive and memorable environment that leaves a lasting impression on all who enter.
The Design Impact
The new design eliminated unnecessary space and all players now have the same locker room space and the same vantage points. The large central open area encourages interaction with all the players, leading to better team camaraderie and connection.
The locker and team rooms are the first phase of a larger transformation of the UGA baseball complex and a testament to the university’s commitment to the sport. When players know that the university is committed to them, they cultivate deep beliefs in themselves. As the next chapter of Georgia Bulldog baseball is written, their facility transforms along with them to gain efficiencies, provide state-of-the-art player-centric environments and support the journey of the collegiate athlete.
Project Features
Player-controlled integrated sound system
Dramatic, layered lighting
“We’ve got these facilities, and it is like, WOW!”
Wes Johnson, Head Baseball Coach, University of Georgia
Health is inextricably linked with where we live—from our individual units to our neighborhood designs. Over the past year, HKS has leveraged research to evaluate how this link defines local communities. One track of our HKS-sponsored grants program is called “Incubators,” where we empower practitioners to invest time and energy into meaningful research initiatives.
A Denver Incubator team approached health care by whether people have—or don’t have—access to permanent housing. And in Detroit, the Incubator team took stock of the city’s housing and disease prevalence, creating a roadmap for design strategies that have research-backed connections to better outcomes.
Housing is a social determinant of health, meaning that homes are one of many non-clinical contingencies on well-being. As a firm, we’ve long examined the home as a health issue. While homes may lack ventilation and clean water, those who inhabit them may lack access to health resources, and observing neighborhood-level trends unveils where we should first intervene.
Our firm embraces a design continuum at different scales—from individuals and buildings to entire organizations and neighborhoods. That is, one research intervention may prescribe “nudging” individuals to take the stairs, but another may assess population-level statistics and inequitable access to resources, providing the building blocks to outline the next steps for our cities’ residential planning by way of optimized outcomes.
If Housing is Health Care What About the Unhoused?
Having a good home contributes to healthcare, so lacking one altogether may mean the opposite.
The number of days spent unhoused is tied to worse health outcomes. That is, permanent housing is better than the alternative. Point-in-time approximations show nearly 600,000 homeless people in the United States, and the total in December 2023 hit a historical apex.
And we must explore this issue at the local level—because homelessness is fundamentally local. Consider the fact that 75% of people who experience homelessness do so in the same county in which they lost their home. Our team in Denver, Colorado, used an HKS-sponsored grant to investigate the link between health and housing. They did so by finding opportunities where the design community may influence collaboration between community professionals to offer solutions that address the overall well-being of unhoused populations in downtown Denver.
The Denver team leveraged the concept of “Whole Health,” a comprehensive approach that explores well-being as a system of many parts, to explore local solutions for the unhoused.
A visual created by the Denver incubator team, adapted from the Eight Dimensions of Wellness
In the summer of 2023, Mayor Mike Johnston declared homelessness a crisis, calling to reduce point-in-time counts by 50% by 2026. To do that, one of the primary goals is to increase the annual number of households served in re-housing and supportive housing programs to 3,000 and reduce the average length of time residents experience homelessness to 90 days (down from 366 days) by 2026.
Over the past 10 years, there have been more than 17,000 street sweeps due to a camping ban enacted in 2012. One leader of the Denver Incubator team, Savannah Gregory, suggests that our approach to homelessness must include permanent supportive housing.
“Architects, designers and planners need to reevaluate their traditional roles only as the creator of place,” Gregory said. “They should expand their roles to help find solutions through legislation, planning and conversations to create healthy housing outcomes for all.”
Permanent Housing is Only One Component of a Health and Housing Paradigm
Given the broad spectrum of housing conditions in the US, uncovering problematic design elements is a critical step in creating healthier communities.
In cities across the world, many residents believe their homes are out of sync with their health. A quarter of New York City’s public housing residents believe their housing impacted their health negatively. Exposure to lead, carbon monoxide, extreme temperatures, or wastewater leads to poor health outcomes, and unfortunately this exposure often happens in the home. Indoor air pollution alone may account for 2 million excess deaths per year.
HKS has carved inroads through our novel approach to sustainability and health—applying what we’ve learned to residential design. In 2017, HKS launched a tool to help designers make healthy product choices. Our practitioners integrate tools to gauge material toxicity—or non-toxicity—in everything we design, including homes.
A broad review of studies that have addressed architecture health indices (AHIs) find major categories fall under air quality, lighting, acoustic indicators, thermal comfort, and are most associated with reducing communicable diseases and injuries. Health-ier cities may have a lower prevalence of communicable diseases, and their residents may report below average rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, or asthma. And next-order considerations may include mental well-being and social cohesion, but as researchers have reported, few studies on AHIs discuss them.
Our Detroit Incubator team, including Betsy Williams and Nikola Gjurchinoski, gathered that the prevalence of various ailments—from asthma and obesity to cardiovascular disease and cancers—may vary significantly city by city, and often, block by block.
“Detroit is a place known for innovation, strong community organizations, highly ranked hospitals, Detroit-focused research institutions and . . . a renewed commitment to exceptional planning and design,” Williams said. “There is great potential for health to be a driver in this design momentum and innovative spirit.”
The incubator team gathered data and information, looking at existing evidence, frameworks, case studies, and held conversations with local partners such as non-profit organizations and healthcare providers to inform which health outcomes to prioritize—and therefore, which design elements to target first.
Based on its research, the team identified nine key evidence-based health outcomes impacted by housing design. For the scope of their HKS-funded research, however, the team focused on the two most critical outcomes for the city of Detroit—obesity and mental health. A gap analysis revealed asynchronies between the community, providers, and housing developers. At one scale, the team investigated the average dwelling unit, analyzing how unit features—from operable windows to envelope and wall design—may impact health outcomes.
A visual created by the Detroit incubator team
Public health research continuously reveals the nominal risks that extrinsic health variables—our behaviors, the environment, and other variables outside our biology and clinical care—play in community mortality rates. Lifelong cigarettes use takes about 10 years off the average lifespan. Cities that lower driving speeds see fewer fatal car crashes and real effects for injury-related mortality. Increased caloric consumption of trans fat poses significant risks to overall mortality.
The Housing Crisis is Often Framed by Affordability, but What About Health
Despite the push for greater affordability, public rental housing is itself considered a risk for all-cause mortality. Those in low-income neighborhoods, including public housing, are termed “marginally housed.” Research suggests that the marginally housed are significantly more likely to not only suffer worse health outcomes, but to overutilize the emergency department, rather than receive care through other means, such as primary doctor’s visits or urgent care centers. For instance, one study found that 40% of respondents who were marginally housed received care through the emergency department over the past year.
The physical and social realities of low-income neighborhoods pose health risks. In many areas, large clusters of public housing developments create segregation, concentrations of poverty, and because of the physical state of many public-housing buildings, the health of residents is compromised.
Our firm elevates community health through health-conscious decision-making. That means we approach population health through a mixed model of connected service points. From our urban designers to residential architects, our firm integrates how we see housing typologies as layered with proximal community amenities, by combining traditional site analysis with geospatial analysis and nature of place research.
“In every instance where these collaborations have occurred in authentic and inclusive ways, we’ve uncovered data points that were used as key drivers to inform positive community impact and design strategies that inform program and other design decisions,” said Alexander Briseno, AIA, Office Design Leader in our Atlanta studio.
Health inequities and the affordability crisis all reveal the fragilities of our communities. But we can take concrete steps toward resiliency. After the COVID-19 pandemic began, we introduced our Community-BLOC concept, a resilient community paradigm with principles like net positive design, digital infrastructure integration, and flexible mobility. The Community-BLOC ensures sustainability and adaptability during pandemics, but also emphasizes inclusivity, health, and education as cornerstones for community resilience, offering a blueprint for designing healthy communities amid crises.
While HKS research delves into the intricate relationship between health and housing, our practitioners actively examine the implications for each scale—from individual units to entire neighborhoods. Investigating health outcomes linked to housing conditions, like homelessness and substandard housing, guides the firm’s efforts in creating healthier communities.
HKS Research operates by a “design to outcomes” framework, where the work we incubate, ideate, and prototype will—once fully realized—integrate with the project processes of our designers, architects, and planners. That’s the model we use as a research-based firm.
Our design research is how our firm progresses toward informed outcomes. The research program at HKS is both a sandbox of creativity and a model for investigating the most pressing issues facing our communities. In the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the link between health and housing. Research is a paradigm where there are always more questions than answers, but it is also the paradigm of interlinking the decisions we make—in partnership with our clients, stakeholders, and communities—with intentionality and a legacy of rigorous research.
Bridging Health & Housing: Design Strategies for Healthier People, Home Community and Climate
Connor Barbara
Nikola Gjurchinoski
Martyna Filloni
Betsy Williams
Rutali Joshi
Jon Bailey
Sammy Shams
Camilla Moretti
Upali Nanda
HKS Global Design Fellowship Promotes Exploration and Innovation in Design
HKS Global Design Fellowship Promotes Exploration and Innovation in Design
By Amy Eagle
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The HKS Global Design Fellowship invites employees from throughout the firm to apply for the annual program, which brings designers together to explore big ideas. Employees selected for the fellowship work in teams to develop projects that respond to pressing issues in architecture.
The Global Design Fellowship “gives young designers an opportunity to step away from (day-to-day) designing of documents and think more broadly,” said Rand Ekman, Chief Sustainability Officer and Partner at HKS.
“It’s about exploring and developing new ideas,” Ekman said.
Throughout the Global Design Fellowship, the teams’ “ideas are generated in a collaborative way and they receive feedback from advisors as their ideas are created,” Ekman added. He said the program models HKS’ design critique process, which encourages diverse thinking to create impactful projects.
The 2024 Global Design Fellowship recently culminated with an event at HKS Dallas, where the design fellows presented their ideas in person to the firm as well as to a panel of Dallas-Fort Worth cultural, governmental and architectural design leaders.
Flexibility and Resilience
The 2024 Global Design Fellowship class consisted of nine HKS employees who were divided into three teams:
Team X – Cassidy Brown from HKS Richmond, Hanieh Sotudeh from HKS Washington, D.C. and Kevin Zhang from HKS New York
Team Y – Thabang Nyondo from HKS Atlanta, Patrick Castro from HKS Chicago and Qining Zhang from HKS San Francisco
Team Z – Bracken Roots from HKS London, Brock Terwilleger from HKS Salt Lake City and Gabrielle Pierson from HKS Chicago
The design fellows sought to answer the question, “Should the built environment embrace nomadic flexibility, or should it seek resilient longevity that invests in future generations?” The teams were tasked to develop design solutions to help societies manage extreme weather conditions that will force people to either shelter in place or pack up and leave.
Teams examined the problem through the lens of the Dallas-Fort Worth region, which in recent years has experienced several negative impacts of extreme weather. These include tornado damage, flooding, record-breaking heat and droughts and an arctic blast that strained the region’s energy infrastructure.
Each team of fellows met virtually for two months to research, define the problem and present their progress to a team of HKS advisors. The teams then participated in a week-long design charrette at the HKS Dallas office. During the charrette, the teams met with advisors to refine their ideas and finalize their presentations.
New Ideas
Brown, Sotudeh and Kevin Zhang (Team X) collaborated on a design to activate Dallas’ downtown pedestrian tunnel network to provide shared, shaded space for the public to enjoy. The team’s future-thinking model supports mental health by offering shelter from extreme heat and promoting social interaction.
The team reimagined the tunnel system to create welcoming entry points and spaces for activity, respite, creativity and social connection, as well as areas where users can experience nature and sunlight and connect with the world above. The team also designed a wayfinding element to guide people through the underground system and to help them understand what to expect inside.
Nyondo, Castro and Qining Zhang (Team Y) developed a phased development plan to reverse the downward spiral of economic disinvestment, cultural decay, mass vacancy and property decline experienced in neighborhoods throughout the U.S. The team’s presentation demonstrated how to acknowledge the mistakesof the past and provide tools for reclaiming beloved, vibrant spaces for future generations.
The team used The Bottom District, a once-thriving historical community adjacent to the Trinity River in Dallas, to show how a lightweight design intervention in a neighborhood can progress to semi-permanent and then permanent structures over several years. Their plan utilizes community pride in the local high school marching band to generate excitement about and involvement in the project. They created a Community Building Handbook to help make the first phase of the plan simple, low-cost and easy for community members to implement.
Roots, Terwilleger and Pierson (Team Z) showcased a method for using mushrooms to break down construction materials including drywall, plastics and wood.
Using the former Valley View Center shopping mall in Dallas as an example, the team showed how a bamboo structural frame could be built over an abandoned structure and seeded with mushroom spores. The resulting mycelium membrane, a material composed of mushrooms growing over the bamboo framework, would provide shade, prevent spores from spreading uncontrollably and shelter mushrooms that decompose the remnants of the former building. These mushrooms could also be used to create consumer goods and new building materials.
The team proposed that over approximately 85 years, this process could reclaim the site of an abandoned building, create green space in the city and help establish a sustainable, circular building economy.
‘Opportunities to Dream Bigger’
Following the teams’ presentations, Ekman led a panel discussion that included three Dallas-Fort Worth leaders who represented unique perspectives, from performing arts to public policy.
Allen said that with his background in teaching landscape architecture and film, he was especially interested in how each team used media to “give other people a sense of how the built environment functions.”
Gavino said that she loved the fellows’ innovative approaches.
“That’s the future of what architecture looks like, right? It’s really introducing those thoughts and planting the seed in bureaucrats’ brains that this is the future that’s possible,” she said. “You give us these options for opportunities to dream bigger.”
Weiss said she was particularly impressed with the sculptural aspects of the Valley View Center rewilding project; the stage-like, inviting entries designed for the Dallas tunnel network; and the emphasis on community involvement in the project to reclaim The Bottom District.
The panelists agreed on the importance of soliciting community input and involvement in design projects.
“Town halls are where you’re going to get your support and you’re going to get the questions that need to be answered now” to accomplish a project, Weiss said. “You have to be ready to listen to that feedback and you have to trust the people.”
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