NBBJ, a global architecture and design firm, announced today that Doug Hocking, AIA, has joined the firm as a Commercial Market Leader and Principal, based in New York. Hocking brings 30 years of experience designing innovative buildings that drive more engaging experiences and resilient futures, with particular focus on adaptive reuse and building repositioning, bringing new life to old structures.
As commercial development pivots in light of an evolving market, future demand will focus on healthy, carbon efficient buildings that create convenience and comfort for a new generation of occupants. Hocking’s pioneering experience in adaptive reuse further expands NBBJ’s ability to support clients in driving design innovation, offering transformative value as they bring people together.
“Doug’s groundbreaking approach to repositioning is uniquely valuable given today’s urban context,” said Robert Mankin, AIA, Managing Partner of NBBJ. “There is widespread need to reinvent competitively obsolete portfolios to better support smaller tenant footprints and hybrid work, as well as address energy efficiency and decarbonization. Doug’s specialized knowledge of the way buildings were built over the past 50 years, combined with a vision for how to successfully reposition them for the next generation, is critical to the economic and social wellbeing of our cities.”
Prior to NBBJ, Hocking was a Principal at KPF in New York, where he led the design of many of the city’s most prominent adaptive reuse projects, including One Madison Avenue, 390 Madison Avenue, 660 Fifth Avenue and Hudson Commons. In total, he has led the design of more than 14 million square feet of projects, including 17 high-rises and 5 million square feet of adaptive reuse projects, for leading clients such as Brookfield Properties, Hines, SL Green and Tishman Speyer.
Doug’s work has been recognized by the AIA and throughout the industry for elegant design that brings out the beauty in structural elements, and for its innovative contributions to sustainability in areas like façade design. He is also deeply committed to advancing the profession, serving on the Executive Committee of the Design Futures Council, and as a founding member of the Committee on Diversity of Cornell’s College of Architecture, among other roles.
“As our cities begin to confront an aging building stock that doesn’t meet the current needs of our clients, design creativity, paired with advances in technology, will allow us to adapt these buildings to meet the needs of the next generation,” said Doug Hocking, AIA, Commercial Market Leader and Principal. “What drew me to NBBJ is the opportunity to leverage the firm’s workplace design practice, with its focus on purpose and wellbeing, to help organizations push the boundaries of what’s possible within their real estate. NBBJ’s strong interdisciplinary skillset—which includes sustainability, experience design and interior design—is an important component in realizing successful renewal.”
Hocking’s role builds on the firm’s resources that serve leading clients on the East Coast and beyond. Through its offices in New York and Boston, the firm is working on millions of square feet of new projects for corporate and commercial clients including Amazon, Beacon Capital, Hines, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas), Related Beal and Tishman Speyer, and institutional clients including Mass General Brigham, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Cornell University, Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center, among many others.
About NBBJ
NBBJ is an ideas-driven design architecture and design firm dedicated to making buildings healthy, communities strong and the environment resilient. With 80 years of experience, the firm’s researchers, strategists, nurses, architects, planners and interior designers work in 12 creative capitals around the world. NBBJ is the recipient of more than 1,000 prestigious awards from leading design and business organizations, such as the American Institute of Architects, the Urban Land Institute, Fast Company and MIPIM. It is also a CarbonNeutral certified company through Nature Capital Partners’ Carbon Neutral Protocol, a signatory of the AIA 2030 Challenge and the Amazon Climate Pledge and a participant of the 1.5C COP26 Communique.
