HASTINGS 2023 Brooklyn Firm Trip

Each year our entire staff takes a one-day field trip to a vibrant city to review significant architecture and urban design.

All together, we share a day of travel and touring, learning, and connecting with one another. Firms across the country provide our staff with tours of their projects and share first-hand experiences and lessons learned. The Firm Trip is a unique opportunity to create a shared experience that informs and inspires our relationships with one another as well as our design work.

This year, we traveled to New York City where our original itinerary was packed with great design across Brooklyn. Unfortunately, torrential downpours and a state of emergency thrust us into an entire new plan for the day. We began our tour spending significantly more time at the new LaGuardia Airport Terminal (designed by HOK / WSP) while waiting for bus transport to Manhattan.

By lunch, we all found ourselves at Chelsea Market and couldn't have been happier for an indoor break from the weather outside.

From there, we braved the wet and walked over to Little Island (Heatherwick Studio / MNLA / Arup) to tour the distinct sculptural park. Little Island rests on 132 concrete columns over the Hudson River near New York City's Meatpacking District and is designed to create a sense of escape from Manhattan.

Boarding buses, we then headed down to lower Manhattan where we took a self guided walking tour of the World Trade Center complex which included the 9/11 Memorial & Museum (Handel Architect / PWP Landscape Architecture / Davis Brody Bond), Perelman Performing Arts Center (REX), and The Oculus (Santiago Calatrava).

We ended our day back in Brooklyn for happy hour, and although the firm trip didn't go as initially planned, we couldn't have curated a day filled with more fun, laughter, and design!