ECD Study Trip to Brussels!

Each year ECD staff are invited for a study weekend away paid for by the company – and we were very pleased that this year our selected destination was Brussels.

Bringing together our teams from London, Glasgow and Preston, the study trip is a great way for us to all to meet-up, share experiences, talk architecture and design, sustainability and best practice, and just socialise and be together.

For many of the team it was the first time visiting Brussels, so we took the opportunity to see as much as we could. Marion Gray got in touch with Sabine Leribaux from architectesassoc+ to give us a tour around Greenbizz. She gave us an incredible insight into their commitment to designing for the maximum social benefit as well as their process of achieving a Passive House standard building. We then split off into groups, group one had a short lecture at the A2M Office covering the Passive House framework in Brussels and several of their recent projects, group two had a building site tour of a new office building by A2M and group three saw the major redevelopments of the Tour+Taxis district.

On Saturday we had a fabulous walking tour of the city (slightly interrupted by the rain!) which was both enjoyable and educational, followed by visits to various Art Nouveau buildings and several of the city’s landmarks.  In the evening the whole group came together for a lovely dinner in the heart of Brussels, followed by some social time.

The final day of the weekend was spent shopping, exploring and eating! Everyone had a brilliant time and the sun even came out to wish us a safe journey home.

It was lovely for everyone to be back together! We look forward already to next year. Great photos! Great memories!