Since 1962, the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion (GSA), the nation’s land­lord, has relied on the ​“Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples for Fed­er­al Archi­tec­ture” which were estab­lished under the lead­er­ship of Daniel Patrick Moyni­han. To make new­ly com­mis­sioned build­ings reach this high bar, GSA cre­at­ed their Design Excel­lence pro­gram to stress the guide­lines and take advan­tage of review by peer pro­fes­sion­als. The results do not adhere to a sin­gle style and have been crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed.

My stu­dio has had the dis­tinct hon­or and priv­i­lege to design build­ings for our coun­try through the GSA Design Excel­lence pro­gram. We have been simul­ta­ne­ous­ly chal­lenged and chas­tened by our respon­si­bil­i­ties. For me, the most inspir­ing instruc­tion in the ​“Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples” has always been: ​“It should be our object to meet the test of Per­i­cles’ evo­ca­tion to the Athe­ni­ans, …We do not imi­tate-for we are a mod­el to oth­ers.” Coura­geous, inde­pen­dent and inno­v­a­tive think­ing is the foun­da­tion of our now cen­turies long exper­i­ment in gov­ern­ment by the peo­ple. We need to con­tin­ue to believe that we can make bet­ter, and yes, dif­fer­ent buildings…and that the best and most beau­ti­ful isn’t some­thing already made.