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HOK Launches Product Design Division

by Nicholas Tamarin | Tuesday, August 31, 2010 | 2 Comments

Not content to rest on its laurels, HOK is launching a new business: HOK Product Design. The global A&D firm’s new venture will harness the talents of its designers to create products that will then be licensed to manufacturers for fabrication and sale.

HOK Product Design is structured as a standalone business within the firm and is being led by Susan Grossinger, former director of interiors for HOK Los Angeles. It will focus on architectural and interior design products targeting consumer, healthcare, lighting, urban planning, furniture, finishes, fire and life safety, and sustainable sectors.

Cumberland Seating

It has already secured deals with manufacturing partners for 12 products, including the, a kit-of-parts for storm-water filtration and groundwater recharge for urban rain gardens created by designers Matt Snelling and Paul Wilhelms, that has been licensed to Midwest Products Group. Also on tap are Tom Polucci and Natalie Banaszak’s Spectrum Collection of rubber and carpet tile for Mannington and Paul Smead’s executive lounge seating group for Cumberland Furniture.

“Product design is a natural extension of what we already do in terms of developing innovative solutions to our clients’ challenges,” says Grossinger. Our goal is to start from square one in terms of creating new concepts, as opposed to simply modifying existing products that are already on the market.”

Mannington Spectrum

Images courtesy of HOK Product Design.