Architect William (Bill) Hellmuth, the chairman and CEO of HOK, passed away on April 6, 2023, after a long illness. Hellmuth was elected president of HOK in 2005, then CEO in 2016. He accepted the new role on the condition of remaining design principal for HOK’s Washington D.C. studio, as he enjoyed having a hands-on approach and working directly with clients and HOK project teams. One year later he was also named chairman of the firm, helping the office to raise its profile as an innovative and influential company within the design community.
Some of Hellmuth’s most notable designs include the 75-story Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Headquarters in the UAE; the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi; Msheireb Downtown Doha mixed-use community in Qatar; King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center and Residential Community in Riyadh; Morgan State University’s Jenkins Hall Behavioral and Social Sciences Center in Baltimore; and the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, Virginia. He was also particularly proud of the buildings that he and the HOK team designed in and around Washington D.C, his adopted hometown. These include the Constitution Square mixed-use district; the D.C. Consolidated Forensic Laboratory; the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia; and NOAA’s National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Maryland.
Bill Hellmuth’s career began in New York. In 1991, he joined HOK at the urging of firm co-founder Gyo Obata. Decades earlier, Obata partnered with George Kassabaum and George Hellmuth, Bill’s uncle, to create Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK). During the 18 months spent in HOK’s St. Louis office, Bill discovered a mentor in Obata. During an office visit in 2019, Bill Hellmuth recalls the influence of his first mentor and the principles he helped instill: “be helpful to the people you’re working with, the people working for you and the people you’re working for. And be optimistic. Ours is not a profession for pessimists.”
Hellmuth’s colleagues remember him for being exceptionally optimistic and a firm believer in design’s ability to improve people’s lives. As a strong advocate for sustainable design, he also belied in the moral obligation of architects to design projects with minimal impact on the environment. Under his tenure, HOK designed hundreds of green-certified projects. Beside the creation of new offices in Denver, Miami and Austin, Hellmuth also increased the number of pro-bono design and charitable giving initiatives, and the creation of HOK Diversity x Design Scholarship for underrepresented design students.
Besides his engagement in design and architecture, Hellmuth also believed in helping the people around him to develop as architects and leaders. As CEO, he saw it as his most important responsibility to “make sure you have really terrific people heading up parts of the firm, so determining who those people are and how to advance their careers,” as he declared for an interview with Architect magazine. Outside of architecture, Hellmuth enjoyed paining, gardening and spending time with his family at a vacation cottage he designed in Rhode Island.
They never expected him to be so hands-on. But that is something Bill took great pride in. He was happiest when working with one of our designers at their desk. His passion for design and our profession inspired those of us who had the privilege of working closely with him. - Susan Klumpp Williams, managing principal of the D.C. office.
A few years ago, Billl Hellmuth gave an interview as part of the Architecture Series by Arbuckle Industries, where he discussed his experiences in architecture school and working in a large practice. He also delves in subjects such as the management and creation of teams to organize large firms and issues of sustainability and livable cities. He will be remembered for his optimism and desire to improve people’s lives, as well as because of the many achievements of HOK, the firm he led for many years.
At the beginning of the year, ArchDaily took a moment to look back at the architecture masters we have lost in the recent past, remembering the legacy of architects such as Pritzker Prize laureate and pioneer of the High-Tech Richard Rogers, Post-Modern icon Ricardo Bofill, the thoughtful Gyo Obata, advocate and innovator Doreen Adengo, and social housing pioneer Renée Gailhoustet.
