-By Don Crichton

Whenever a client approaches HOK with ideas for a project, our first task is to acquire an understanding of what the client request really means in terms of its business, culture, work processes, and brand. We all know programming is an important first step, but too often designers jump into the process before truly understanding the project objectives. At HOK Workplace Solutions, we've developed an interactive visioning process to help us understand the client's business, in order to create spaces that fully support and enhance their operations while acting as a 3-D calling card of their brand.

HOK wrote a book on architectural programming in 1961, which was the impetus to this visioning process: Problem Seeking (now in its fourth edition) offers innovative analytic and benchmarking practices that accelerate the design process and demystify it for clients. Problem Seeking® is a proprietary tool that has been developed and applied worldwide by the HOK Advance Strategies' team, empowering HOK's clients to make smarter business decisions for their people and spaces.

The programming process at HOK follows the original set of fundamental principles laid down in the problem-seeking methodology: establish the goals, state the problem, collect and analyze facts, determine needs, and test concepts. The result is a thorough discovery phase that enables the design team to get to the heart of a client's real business drivers, image, culture issues, functional imperatives, and appetite for change.

This depth of understanding can be achieved in various levels of interaction with the organization, depending on a client's desire for engagement. For the "deep dive," we deploy three tools: visioning; an online survey, called the "Nature of Work;" and an on-site observation tool, called a "Day in the Life." Taken together, this methodology correlates "what the visionaries want, what their people say they need, and what we see."

HOK's use of visioning for the new 45,000-sq.-ft. Canadian headquarters of MediaCom, a global media investment management company in Toronto, is a case study in the benefits of this process. The client team already had an idea of the image they hoped to convey. They wanted an urban-chic office with the charm of a brick and beam loft as a new home for cool advertising and business types. But we wanted to ensure we understood their business drivers, as well.

We started the visioning process by bringing together a broad cross-section of the organization, not just senior management. Diversity in the client group results in a deeper level of engagement and supports change management objectives and effective communication. The process also promotes consensus among participants and clarifies the client's vision in a short time frame. We met for a half-day session on-site with members of the client's staff. Utilizing our visioning tool kit, we elicited diverse viewpoints, explored key issues, and sketched out ideas. By the end of the session, we were able to arrive at a good understanding of the client's workplace culture, functional requirements, and business objectives.

There's another bonus to applying this comprehensive methodology. In workplaces everywhere, patterns of work are shifting. Not only is flexibility important to clients, but collaboration is becoming a business tool of choice for reaching performance and productivity targets. Our clients are keenly interested in our experience with designing collaborative workplaces that encourage creativity and innovation. Those same layouts simultaneously enhance our ability to design environmentally sustainable interiors.

After 10 years of working with this process at HOK, and more than 20 years in the profession, I've learned that successful buildings and interiors are the result of early strategic planning and sound functionality. Producing solutions that work means taking time to listen to what clients need, evaluating what they tell us, and then designing with those needs in mind. In the end, our clients are rewarded with richer design solutions that meet their needs now and well into the future.

Incidentally, the MediaCom team loves their new space. It's definitely young, hip, and creative, with a distinctive corporate image. HOK couldn't have done it without a tried-and-true visioning process.

Don Crichton, ARIDO, IDC, NCIDQ, is vice president, Workplace Solutions for HOK's Canadian operations in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.