Citizen HKS: A Powerful Agent for Change

HKS is committed to leveraging sustainable design to address growing humanitarian needs in underserved communities around the world. In 2014, we launched Citizen HKS as our firm’s answer to Public Architecture’s 1+ program. Citizen HKS is our impact initiative, enabling HKS to dedicate company time and resources to help communities in need. In the five years since its founding, Citizen HKS has designed and helped build projects from Uganda to Dallas and places in between. In the process, we’ve shown that for-profit companies can do well by doing good.

As global citizens, employees at HKS are committed to serving marginalized communities in the places we live and work. Citizen HKS is guided by the belief that all people deserve to live in socially, economically and environmentally healthy communities. Focusing on three key actionable areas for socially responsible engagement, Citizen HKS is impacting lives and driving change through design, community service and financial philanthropy to help lift communities in need.

Joy, health, happiness and safety are fundamental elements of great design. To this end, every Citizen HKS design project begins by asking: how can our work improve the world? 

Empathic design takes the long view, beyond designing a single building. Our teams address complex dynamics and systemic challenges alongside the communities facing them. We partner with non-profits, civic leaders, like-minded contractors and design industry colleagues to get projects built, outfitted and operational. Together, we reimagine how design can transform lives.  

Giving is not a thing we do – it’s part of our culture. Each fall, all HKS offices join as one for a dedicated firmwide Month of Service. Each office selects service projects in their home communities, then spend evenings, lunch breaks or weekends volunteering for a worthy cause.

Whether we’re raising funds at an athletic event, swinging hammers to repair a home, painting a school, mentoring youth, making and serving meals, cleaning beaches and parks, planting trees or volunteering with veterans, seniors, in orphanages and gardens, our impact story is meaningful. Since 2015, HKS employees have volunteered more than 13,000 hours, serving nearly 300 non-profit or community organizations through more than 400 events. They have raised approximately $300,000 for charities across the globe.

HKS’ firm-wide employee fundraising campaigns are dedicated to ensuring that Citizen HKS design projects that need financial assistance get built. These giving campaigns engage employees on a humanitarian level, connecting us to life-changing projects and demonstrating our impact when we work toward a shared ambition. 

HKS’ global citizens have answered the call by exceeding fundraising goals to complete two Citizen HKS design projects:  the Kachumbala Maternity Unit in Uganda, and the Sensory Wellbeing Hub at Lane Tech College Preparatory High School in Chicago.

After five years, we have much to celebrate and much yet to do. With several completed projects and many more in various phases on the boards; after dozens of design competitions entered and awards won; and thousands of hours volunteered and dollars raised, our impact, however incremental, is inching us closer toward helping solve society’s complex problems. 

Within HKS, a multidisciplinary group of talented design practitioners, researchers, fabricators, structural engineers, marketers and more continue to engage with our communities and industry partners to dream, design, investigate and measure emerging ideas that effect lasting change. We invite you to join our journey toward authentic citizenship.