Cutting-edge Design Day shows off success stories at Brooklyn Navy Yard

May 16, 2023 Special from Brooklyn Navy Yard

Aerial photo of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Photos courtesy of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

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BROOKLYN NAVY YARD — One of the city’s most vital hubs for innovators, entrepreneurs, and designers is the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Built originally as a 19th-century U.S. Naval facility for ship construction and repair, it was taken over by the city soon after the Navy pulled out. Now home to more than 550 businesses across 6.5 million square feet, the Yard is hosting a Design Day that spotlights its cutting-edge design community.

Opening their doors to visitors on May 20 will be 15 design studios. From the hours of noon to 4 p.m., visitors will be welcome to see the latest in design, from shoes to high-tech motorcycles, in coordination with the citywide NYC x DESIGN Festival. See details and the full story here.

The event offers visitors a rare window into the designers and manufacturers making many of the products people use in their everyday lives, like the Oxo kitchen products, in addition to the entrepreneurs disrupting their industries like gender-defying fashion brand Kirrin Finch and electric motorcycle manufacturer Tarform.

Visitors are invited to step inside the top, cutting-edge designer studios to see and sample their products, and to support them in the marketplace.

Step inside Smart Design, a 40,000+ square foot design research, strategy, and innovation center where collaborations with companies such as OXO, Gatorade, PepsiCo, and Sephora unfold.

Explore Danish-based ECCO’s only New York location and shop their showroom, see their workshop spaces, and learn how they have worked with dozens of companies on their shoe and apparel lines.

Kirrin Finch, a designer of “gender-defying fashion” aims to challenge fashion norms for what is considered menswear and womenswear and instead focus on great fitting clothing for everyone. Visitors can checkout their showroom with suits ready for purchase.

Urbanstrong is “driven by technology, inspired by nature.” Their team of designers, installers and green building consultants vet and test dozens of different living wall and green roof systems, technologies and materials available on the market.

From an accelerator space at Newlab, to a new space at Building 303, Tarform Motorcycles is a go-to stop for Design Day to see the sleek future of electric motorcycles.
Tarform Motorcycles.