Why We Travel

The practice of designers traveling to learn is an ancient one and particularly well-documented in architecture, from the Greeks' influence on the Romans all the way through to the wide variety of global styles extant in the United States. Think of the Spanish villas of the West Coast, or the Georgian influences prevalent in Virginia. Frank Lloyd Wright bore back lessons from his time in Asia, and Thomas Jefferson was similarly intrigued by Italy and France. 

Over the years, we have found that new locales create new touchpoints for design conversation both internally and with clients, as well as keeping our workplace culture fresh and interesting for the next generation of practitioners. In addition to travel to places of great antiquity, our program is deliberate and intentional about visiting the work of contemporary masters.

"Travel and exposure to a broad range of architecture and architectural research reminds us that we are always students, constantly asking, 'What if this is where we need to be to mentally grow design.'"

Participant Wesley Page

Visiting, contemplating, and then sketching often evokes the same emotions in participants that seduced them into architecture in the first place. Moreover, as the program has visited locations all over the globe, photography and field sketches have aggregated to form a rich reference library of tapestries, textures, and traditions that  are shared with the broader firm in special presentations.

Past retreats have been held in Riva San Vitale, Zurich, and Lucerne, Switzerland; Venice, Italy; Barcelona and Bilbao, Spain; Egypt; London, England; Finland/Sweden; Brazil; Japan; and Lisbon, Portugal.