Magazine

John Hill | 02.04.2026

Headlines

As expected, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) overwhelmingly approved plans for the new State Ballroom at the East Wing of the White House. Only one dissenting vote was cast in a meeting that took place two days after a judge ordered construction of the 89,000-square-foot...


John Hill | 01.04.2026

Headlines

On Tuesday, March 31, US District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that construction of President Donald Trump's ballroom at the White House needs to stop, since it lacks the proper approvals from Congress. The ruling came a couple days ahead of the National Capital Planning Commission's...


John Hill | 25.03.2026

Headlines

In response to the anticipated closure of the Kennedy Center in July for a two-year renovation, eight cultural and architectural organizations—including the American Institute of Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation—have filed suit against the Trump administration so it...


John Hill | 18.03.2026

Headlines

The latest piece in US President Donald Trump's transformation of the White House is a proposed security facility the US Secret Service would use to screen visitors to the White House for tours and events.


John Hill | 05.03.2026

Headlines

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), which was expected to approve plans for US President Donald Trump's ballroom at the East Wing of the White House on Thursday, March 5, has postponed the vote until April 2 “given the large amount of public input on the project.”


John Hill | 20.02.2026

Headlines

The seven members of the US Commission of Fine Arts (CFA)—all of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump in January—have approved plans for a $400 million ballroom to replace the White House's East Wing that was demolished last fall. Approval by the National Capital Planning Commission...


John Hill | 04.02.2026

Headlines

US President Donald Trump is continuing his reshaping of Washington, DC, with headlines in recent days indicating he will close the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for a two-year “reconstruction” and big-name firms are submitting designs to redesign Washington Dulles International...


John Hill | 09.01.2026

Headlines

Three months after the East Wing of the White House was bulldozed by US President Donald J. Trump to make way for a new ballroom, and two months after Shalom Barnes replaced James C. McCrery as architect of the addition, the “East Wing Modernization Project” was presented to the National...


John Hill | 22.10.2025

Headlines

Outrage has accompanied images of the East Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, being demolished to make way for US President Donald J. Trump's large addition of a 900-seat, $250 million ballroom.


John Hill | 06.08.2025

Headlines

First he added gold trim to the Oval Office. Then he added two large flagpoles to the White House grounds and paved over the lawn of the famous Rose Garden. Now US President Donald Trump is set to build a 90,000-square foot, $200 million ballroom where the East Wing now stands.


René Ammann | 22.09.2024

Number

Length of time that former President Donald Trump's 2020 executive order requiring government planners to “beautify public spaces and inspire...


John Hill | 23.01.2024

Found

The National Building Museum in Washington, DC, opened Building Stories on January 21. Six years in the making, the ambitious multigenerational exhibition curated by Leonard Marcus, an expert on children's literature, will be on display for ten years.


John Hill | 07.06.2023

Headlines

The Smithsonian has announced that Perkins&Will will design the Bezos Learning Center at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, named for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos following his $200 million gift to the institution.


René Ammann | 12.05.2023

Number

Share of materials in the renovation of the American Geophysical Union Headquarters in Washington, DC that was reused: 96%


John Hill | 19.04.2023

Headlines

Frank Gehry and Bjarke Ingels are the big names among the five architecture firms vying to design the planned National Museum of the U.S. Navy in an “artistic ideas competition.”


GO'C | 10.04.2023

Building of the Week

The location of a former gas station in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood has been transformed by GO'C into a gallery and community center with an open-air courtyard and rooftop for gatherings. The architects answered a few questions about the project.


EHDD | 03.04.2023

Building of the Week

As spring brings the promise of warmer weather, many people's thoughts turn to outdoor activities such as sunbathing, swimming, and sand volleyball. Juanita Beach Park in Kirkland, Washington, is a year-round neighborhood amenity with these and other activities. A bathhouse with restrooms...


John Hill | 01.04.2023

Found

Elyn Zimmerman's Marabar, a site-specific installation on the plaza of the National Geographic Society (NGS) in Washington, DC, has been relocated to the campus of the American University (AU) in DC. Zimmerman reworked the 450,000-pound artwork and gave it a new name: Sudama.


BLDUS | 13.03.2023

Building of the Week

Jurisdictions across the United States are updating their zoning codes to allow more residential density, much of it in the form of ADUs. In Washington, DC, a recent rezoning now allows single-family houses on alley lots. One such alley, Adelaide Alley, is home to a bark- and cork-clad...


Johnston Architects and Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects | 27.02.2023

Building of the Week

Located in North Central Washington, Winthrop is a small town of over 400 residents that is widely known because of its downtown, which has an American Old West design stemming from the town's Westernization program. Seattle's Johnston Architects followed the program in their design of the...


John Hill | 01.11.2022

Headlines

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, has announced that Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Selldorf Architects will modernize the building's interior and plaza.


John Hill | 08.09.2022

Headlines

Five anonymous design proposals for the Bezos Learning Center at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, are now available for public comment by September 19.


GO’C | 14.03.2022

Building of the Week

Wineries give architects the opportunity to engage directly with nature, often finding inspiration in the vineyards that surround them. Alton Wines takes its cues from the landscape it is nestled into and the mountains that surround Walla Walla in the southeastern region of Washington....


John Hill | 21.02.2022

Insight

Visitors to the American-Architects platform of World-Architects last month voted Mecanoo’s renovation of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC as US Building of the Year, picking it from dozens of adaptive reuse and renovation projects. Following...


John Hill | 01.02.2022

Found

The transformation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, has received the most votes in our poll for US Building of the Year, which focused on adaptive reuse and renovation projects in 2021. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the 1972 library was renovated by...


John Hill | 04.01.2022

Headlines

MARABAR, Elyn Zimmerman's site-specific installation in Washington, DC, that was saved from demolition last year, has found a new home: the campus of American University, just four miles northwest of the monumental artwork's original location.


Allied8 | 08.11.2021

Building of the Week

Fourteen residential units and two retail spaces now fill the former Columbia City Abbey, a 1924 building at 39th and Ferdinand in Seattle. Allied8 handled the adaptive reuse, making each apartment unique from the rest. The Seattle studio answered a few questions about the project.


Wittman Estes | 20.09.2021

Building of the Week

Imperial 400 Motel was a chain of motels that started in Los Angeles in the late 1950s and subsequently expanded into other parts of the United States. One of their locations in Washington State was recently transformed into a boutique hotel called Civic Hotel. The architects at Wittman Estes...


KUBE architecture | 05.07.2021

Building of the Week

Many adaptive reuse projects turn old buildings, many of them industrial, into entirely different uses: offices, residences, even museums. In this regard, an appealing aspect of AutoHaus is the way it retains part of its original function. KUBE architecture answered a few questions about the...


Studio Twenty Seven Architecture | 10.05.2021

Building of the Week

Seen from the street, Chapman Stables is an old — if lovingly restored — two story brick building in Washington, DC's Truxton Circle neighborhood. Behind the brick is a two-story addition and a new five-story building whose massing preserves the appearance of the century-old historic stables...


John Hill | 31.03.2021

Found

Following a sixteen-month closure due to restoration work and the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Building Museum in Washington, DC is reopening with two exhibitions on Boston's MASS Design Group: Justice Is Beauty and Gun Violence Memorial Project.


John Hill | 11.03.2021

Headlines

Hugh Newell Jacobsen, an architect based in Washington, DC, known for high-end houses organized as pavilions with gabled forms, died at an assisted-living center in Front Royal, Virginia, on March 4 — exactly one week shy of his 92nd birthday.


John Hill | 04.03.2021

Headlines

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has announced that MARABAR, Elyn Zimmerman's site-specific installation in Washington, DC, has been saved from demolition and will be moved to a new location.


Hickok Cole | 15.02.2021

Building of the Week

For decades, St. Thomas’ Parish in Washington, DC, sat as a remnant of its former self, after a fire in 1970 destroyed much of the late-19th-century church. The church gave the community a small park where the sanctuary once stood, but now it has a new home: a contemporary building designed by...


John Hill | 07.01.2021

Headlines

Designed by LMN Architects, the Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal, linking Whidbey Island to the Seattle-Everett metropolitan area, opened on December 29, the first new ferry terminal in Washington State in more than 40 years.


John Hill | 13.11.2020

Headlines

The National Museum of the United States Army — billed as the first cultural institution to tell the story of the oldest branch of the US military — opened on November 11, Veterans Day.