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Another HOK innovation was the firm's emphasis on getting involved in projects at the very beginning and then assigning teams that stuck with those projects until the very end.

It started with Kassabaum, who observed that architects tended to disengage from society to concentrate on their work, and who believed the profession suffered as a result. When he became AIA president, he said, “Architects shouldn't wait around for politicians, economists and sociologists to come to us. Too often they decide where a building is to be built, how much it will cost, and then call in an architect. By that time, too many important decisions have been made.”⁴

Kassabaum believed that instead architects should be civic-minded, get out into the world, and engage with decision makers to help make good choices early. Today we call this “predesign services,” where architects do things like help a client choose the ideal site, decide how many stories a building should be, and so on. Intervening early came to be a core belief of my own. More on that later. As for Kassabaum, he practiced what he preached. He was a latter-day renaissance man, fully immersed in civic, professional, and academic life. In addition to his lifelong work with the AIA, he remained connected with Washington University as a faculty member, fundraiser, and trustee. HOK benefited early and often from his deep ties to the community and profession.

Gyo Obata also contributed to HOK's beginning-to-end innovation. In many firms, designers only actively participated during the design phase. Then, they turned over responsibility to a production team led by a project architect. Gyo understood that design was a process—not a phase—and must continue from the beginning of design through the end of construction. Thus, another innovation was that Gyo or his designated designer remained with each project throughout production, as the technical team prepared drawings and specifications. HOK designers reviewed details, materials, and anything else that would affect the final design of the building. Design involvement even continued during construction, when designers reviewed contractor shop drawings, material samples and, finally, colors. Even after construction was complete, one step remained for the designer: touring the finished building with the owner to assess the finished design.

But it wasn't just the design department that followed projects from beginning to end. HOK assigned one person from each of the firm's disciplines to go after a job, and then the same team saw the project through. Believe it or not, many firms at the time assigned staff to a project on an as-needed basis, with people coming and going when they needed to put out fires for some other client. Instead, at HOK, the founders would identify the designer, project manager, and project architect for each project, and make those people part of the pitch. If HOK landed the contract, that same designer would conceive the building, the project architect would make sure the design worked, and the project manager would follow up to see that everything happened on time and on budget. The insight here is that designers are creative, but less grounded. It helps to pair them with a project architect who oversees the technical design and a project manager who keeps things on track. Then, by keeping the entire team together, they develop a kind of institutional memory for the details of the project that is invaluable.