How one of Brooklyn's most expensive neighborhoods became a home base for the creative class
By Fast Company
March 8, 2025
In the past two years alone, more than 40 architecture and creative firms have signed leases in Dumbo. That’s by design.
When international architecture firm Snøhetta found its Manhattan lease was coming up last year, a search kicked off for a new workspace. The firm, which had been located in New York City for 21 years, scoured neighborhoods near and far, such as the Brooklyn Navy Yards.
But in the end, the choice was one many such firms had been making recently, according to partner and managing director Elaine Molinar. They wanted a building with character that was conducive to creative work, and found it within a 25,000-square-foot space on the top floor of 55 Washington Street in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, where about 70 workers will move in later this year.
“The space is on the ninth floor—with a large, beautiful skylight; a big, open elevated area; a private terrace; a wonderful quality of light; and some odd geometry on one end,” Molinar says. “They’re the kind of quirks that architects love. It just kind of feels like home.”
Read on at FastCompany.com
