Mr. Hellmuth ran the St. Louis corporate from its Washington place of business, the place he led design paintings on dozens of native tasks together with the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., the mixed-use Constitution Square building in the District, and the renovation of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
His different primary tasks incorporated the 75-story Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. headquarters, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and the U.S. Embassy chancery and place of business annex in Moscow, however Mr. Hellmuth mentioned he regarded as his Washington constructions to be his most important paintings.
“The ability to help shape a city and have your buildings be a part of the fabric of that city — for me, that is really the most important stuff,” he instructed Building Design+Construction, an architecture mag that produces an interview program on YouTube. “Building that body of work and really taking a city which I love and helping move it forward, that’s for me the most important thing.”
His different tasks across the Washington area come with the D.C. Consolidated Forensic Laboratory, the federal Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Md., and a luxurious buying groceries middle in Chevy Chase, Md.
Mr. Hellmuth was once an early chief in sustainable design, each at HOK and in the broader architecture international.
The D.C. forensic lab building, a 351,000-square-foot venture, comprises automatic sun sunscreen covers and fritted glass louvers to regulate oblique mild in open place of business spaces. The weather center in College Park, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes a four-story waterfall for shifting rainwater previous an out of doors eating terrace and into bio-retention gardens.
During Mr. Hellmuth’s tenure, HOK finished loads of tasks that have been green-certified.
“It isn’t because we’re tree-huggers or doomsayers,” Mr. Hellmuth instructed Washington (*69*) Journal in 2008. “It’s because sustainable design is now an essential part of architecture.”
“As architects,” he added, “we have a moral obligation to fix this before it has catastrophic consequences.”
William Koerner Hellmuth was once born in Cleveland on June 3, 1953. His father was once a vice chairman at Gascon Paper Co., and his mom was once a homemaker.
He was once 10 when his father died, and his paternal uncle, George Hellmuth, was once considered one of HOK’s founders. Yet his father and uncle have been estranged, so Bill was once handiest vaguely conscious about the Hellmuth facet of the circle of relatives, let on my own its connection to architecture.
Mr. Hellmuth studied architecture at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1975. Two years later, he won a grasp’s stage in architecture from Princeton, the place he was once taught by means of Michael Graves, who helped outline the postmodern motion in the sphere.
After he completed his training, “HOK wasn’t even on my radar,” Mr. Hellmuth told a magazine printed by means of the American Institute of Architects.
His first task was once designing place of business towers at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York City. After 15 years there, he were given stressed and a pal urged he touch Gyo Obata — the O in HOK. Obata employed him, and Mr. Hellmuth in any case were given to grasp the opposite facet of his circle of relatives, together with George Hellmuth.
“I always tell people I’m at HOK by accident,” he mentioned in the e-book “Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm,” a historical past of HOK. “It’s a wonderful accident, but it was an accident.”
After running in St. Louis for 2 years, Mr. Hellmuth was the pinnacle of HOK’s Washington place of business in 1993. He was president of HOK in 2005 and leader govt in 2016. Last November, the company announced he was once on clinical go away.
Mr. Hellmuth married Nancy LeSage in 1982. In addition to his spouse, survivors come with two kids, Will Hellmuth of San Francisco and Grayson Rueckert of New York; two brothers; and two grandchildren.
In the times following his loss of life, Mr. Hellmuth was once being remembered in the architecture trade for his hands-on way to tasks even whilst operating the corporate. He additionally persevered to mentor up-and-coming architects.
Asked as soon as what recommendation he would give to architecture scholars, Mr. Hellmuth mentioned to be useful anywhere they land after college.
“You’re not going to be Frank Lloyd Wright on the first day,” he mentioned. “Even Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t Frank Lloyd Wright on the first day.”