Front Cover: Greenpeace USA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Left: Gender Justice Non-Profit, Washington, DC
We’re a global collective of designers and changemakers.
We aspire to create places where humanity thrives in harmony with nature. Our future depends on it.
Our work is driven by curiosity, powered by research and technology, and fueled by grit and ingenuity. We strive to make a positive difference every day. To do the right thing. To seek out ways to be even better.
With you—our clients, communities, partners, and peers—we aim to create a more beautiful, sustainable, equitable world. Together, we design for life.
Our Washington, DC Studio
In Washington DC, every project offers the opportunity to shape design discourse on a national stage. We are proud to contribute to progress here, and are inspired by DC’s complexity, momentum, and capacity to lead. It’s inspiring to work side by side with clients and communities who are building a better future. Together, we design spaces that are inclusive, regenerative, and enduring.
Our studio is rooted in the belief that architecture should uplift. We are advocates for inclusive, healthy, and sustainable environments. Whether designing a public library, a research lab, or a community health center, our goal is the same: to deliver design excellence that serves the greater good.
We lead with curiosity, vision, and execution; we embrace innovation—not for novelty’s sake—but to help institutions, individuals, and our environment thrive. We welcome new tools, new thinking, and new technologies, but we stay grounded in what matters most: human connection, shared values, and lasting impact.
We believe that great design begins with listening. Through deep engagement and collaboration with our clients and the people who will experience the spaces we create, we transform complex challenges into purposeful, elegant solutions.
Beyond just a workplace, our studio is a living laboratory where the latest innovations in health, wellness, and sustainability are tested, demonstrated, and shared.
Giving back so others can move forward.
“Together, We Design” features everyday heroes making a positive difference in their communities.
Our Social Purpose program gives us the chance to contribute to our communities in more personal ways. We provide pro bono professional services to nonprofits for whom such services would otherwise be out of reach. Our projects address human needs like affordable housing, childcare, healthcare, and education.
At the same time, we also like to roll up our sleeves and get involved in hands-on volunteer work. We serve meals at food pantries, organize coat drives, participate in community gardening, and lead fundraisers, to name a few activities. Whether it’s design or “sweat equity,” we’re inspired by the power of human connection.
Opposite Page, Clockwise from Top:
Our team provided design services pro bono through our Social Purpose program for Aspire! an after-school learning organization in Arlington, Virginia; Perkins&Will staff volunteering at DC Central Kitchen, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service 2026; Children’s National Medical Center, Bunny Mellon Healing Garden, a patient’s last wish to go outdoors was the genesis for the garden concept that has become a reality thanks to generous donors.
Not for Profit Clients
Airlines for America Washington, DC
Allina Health Corporate Headquarters Minneapolis, Minnesota
Alpine Group Washington, DC
American Cancer Society
Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation Hope Lodge Houston, Texas
American College of Radiology Reston, Virginia Washington, DC
American Hospital Association Chicago, Illinois
American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Chicago, Illinois
American Lung Association Chicago, Illinois
American Red Cross Chicago, Illinois Indianapolis, Indiana
American Society for Interior Designers (ASID) Headquarters Washington, DC
Annenberg Foundation Los Angeles, California
Arlington Free Clinic Arlington, Virginia
Arthritis Foundation Atlanta, Georgia
Aspire! Arlington, Virginia
Be the Match Minneapolis, Minnesota
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Washington, DC
Branchfood Boston, Massachusetts
Brinson Foundation Chicago, Illinois
Bunker Labs Chicago, Illinois
Business for Social Responsibility New York, New York
Business Roundtable Washington, DC
Camp Southern Ground Fayetteville, Georgia
Centers for Victims of Torture Headquarters Saint Paul, Minnesota
Children’s Inn at National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland
CompTIA Washington, DC Downers Grove, Illinois
Community of Hope Washington, DC
Community Partners of Dallas Dallas, Texas
Council for a Strong America Washington, DC
Emancipet Austin, Texas
Environmental Defense Fund New York, New York Washington, DC Austin, Texas
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Washington, DC
Food Forward Los Angeles, California
Fraser Richfield, Minnesota
Gates Foundation Washington, DC
Gender Justice Non-Profit Washington, DC
GiGi’s Playhouse
Hoffman Estates, Illinois
Girls Educational & Mentoring Services
New York, New York
Girl Scouts of Chicago Chicago, Illinois
Great River Energy Maple Grove, Minnesota
Green Door Washington, DC
Greenpeace Washington, DC
Harlem RBI Strategic Facilities Plan
New York, New York
International Interior Design Association (IIDA) Chicago, Illinois
Jesse Draper Boys & Girls Club East Point, Georgia
Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Centre Nairobi, Kenya
La Clinica del Pueblo Washington, DC
Medica
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Moving in the Spirit Space to Soar Atlanta, Georgia
Museum of Science and Industry Master Planning Chicago, Illinois
Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Dublin, Ohio
Potluck Cafe Society Vancouver, British Columbia
Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) Washington, DC
Special Olympics of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota
Summit Foundation Washington, DC
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Urban Institute Washington, DC
Urban Libraries Council Chicago, Illinois
U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Washington, DC
Vector Institute Toronto, Ontario
Whitman-Walker Health Washington, DC
The Wilder Foundation St. Paul, Minnesota
WiNGS Dallas, Texas
YMCA Bethesda, Maryland Alexandria, Virginia Miami, Florida
YMCA Centennial Place Atlanta, Georgia
YMCA East Side Branch Rochester, New York
Youthlink
Minneapolis, Minnesota
ASID’s Headquarters can accommodate up to 40 employees allowing them to experience a high-performing, healthy, and flexible work space in order for their experiences and research to serve as a model for the industry.
The design for Airlines for America’s headquarters represents the association’s goals of capturing the spirit of flight while engaging its member organizations.
#2 Architecture
Firm in the U.S.
Architectural Record, 2025
#2 Architecture
Firm in the U.S.
Engineering News Record, 2025
#2 Architecture Firm
Building Design + Construction, 2025
#3, Top 100 Giants
Interior Design, 2025
Sustainability Giant
Interior Design, 2025
Planet Positive Firm of the Year
Metropolis Magazine, 2023
Best Sustainable Firm
2024
AIA National
DCPL: Southwest Library
Washington, DC
Winner: AIA Interior Architecture Award, 2023
IIDA Mid Atlantic Chapter
Whitman-Walker Health, Max Robinson Center
Washington, DC
Winner: Pinnacle Award (Best of the Best), 2025
Georgetown University, Hart Auditorium Renovation
Washington, DC
Winner: Pinnacle Award (Best of the Best), 2024
University of Arizona Government Affairs Office
Washington, DC
Winner: Pinnacle Award (Best of the Best), 2021
NAIOP MD / DC
Confidential Aerospace Company
Washington, DC
Winner: Award of Merit, Best Interiors, 2025
Fast Company
Greenpeace Washington, DC
Finalist: Sustainable Design, Innovation by Design Awards, 2024
ASID National Awards
Whitman-Walker Health, Max Robinson Center
Washington, DC
FOCUS Community: Large Firm Winner, 2025
Greenpeace
Washington, DC
FOCUS Sustainability: Large Firm Winner, 2024
U.S. Green Building Council Headquarters
Washington, DC
FOCUS Wellness: Large Firm Winner, 2023
AIA DC Chapter Design Awards
Williams & Connolly
Washington, DC
Jury Citation: Design for Integration, 2025
Projects designed by our Washington, DC team have received over 100 design awards in the last 5 years.
Top: Whitman-Walker Max Robinson Center
Bottom: Confidential Aerospace Company
Designing your workplace to celebrate your mission.
Storytelling and placemaking are powerful tools that shape how people experience and connect with a space. By weaving your narrative into the built environment, we transform spaces that reflect your values, culture, and aspirations.
Images this page, clockwise from top right:
The ASID headquarters is the first project in the world to achieve both LEED-CI Platinum and WELL Building Standard Platinum Certification.
Be The Match’s history, scientific research, and technologies, as told through the transplant donor - patient relationship are celebrated throughout the workplace.
Business Roundtable’s member organizations are featured on dichroic glass disks, filtering colored light that changes throughout the day.
Energy and carbon reduction strategies included optimized building systems, salvaged and reclaimed materials, green power offsets, and reuse of their existing furniture, all of which contributed to the Environmental Defense Fund’s reduced carbon impact.
Storytelling is embedded throughout this Confidential Client’s workplace, with large-scale graphics, gallery like arrangements of framed color photos of U.S. and global programs, and digital displays.
Leaders in Sustainability
One of the things we’re most proud of is that, for decades, we’ve led the AEC industry toward exceptional environmental performance. We partner with leading organizations to create tools that advance sustainability in the design profession.
Transparency
In 2008, we ignited an industry movement toward healthy building materials with our Precautionary List and, later, our Transparency portal. Today, the movement is still going strong.
https://transparency.perkinswill.com/
mindful MATERIALS
Our leadership in advocating for the transformation of building products led to our industry-leading role within the mindful MATERIALS Collaborative. The mindful MATERIALS Library is a free digital platform that allows design teams and industry professionals to search for products that meet thirdparty, health-based certifications, declarations, and validations.
https://www.mindfulmaterials.com/
Carbon Forecasts
Our Carbon Forecasts help our clients understand their projects’ overall greenhouse gas emissions—and their impact on human and environmental health—while also identifying steps to minimize them.
Embodied Carbon Calculator
Our work on the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator, or EC3, made it simpler than ever for designers to quantify the carbon impacts of building materials—for free.
We created a compilation of alternatives to products that have been linked to health and environmental hazards makes it easy to specify healthier building materials.
We developed tallyCAT, Free, OpenAccess Tool for Built Environment Sector to Support Carbon-Smart Procurement Decisions, in partnership with Building Transparency, C-Change Labs and funded by the Province of British Columbia.
Funded by a $30,000 ASID Foundation Grant, we created the PRECEDE dashboard, an open-access tool that draws on federal data to identify and assess community health priorities within the U.S. by location. PRECEDE, which stands for Public Repository to Engage Community & Enhance Design Equity, helps designers integrate and translate public health data into design decisions.
https://precede.perkinswill.com/
Sustainability
In 2025, we released our global impact report, Stewardship in Action, providing robust data on our industry leadership in decarbonization, ecological health and well-being, and diversity and inclusion..
Read full report here: https://perkinswill.com/ impact-report-2025/
← Health and happiness are the design drivers behind the PRECEDE tool, which will help project teams understand the unique needs of the communities they’re designing for.
Thought Leadership
Our designers are the core of design innovation at our firm, constantly motivating us all to reimagine what’s possible. Their research elevates holistic well-being and sustainability, addressing both psychology and public health.
Leading by Example: Three Mission-Driven Organizations Present a Roadmap for Sustainable Design
Moving towards net-zero does not always require spending more money. David Cordell wrote about designing the workplaces for three environmental-focused non-profit organizations, each realized significant reductions in global warming potential and improvements to occupant health without adding to construction costs.
Our research and strategies on Supporting Neurodiversity in the Workplace can be read in the link below. We incorporated the findings in our design for bp America’s office in Washington, DC
Reducing Embodied Carbon in Practice: A Roadmap for Minimizing Embodied Carbon Impact within Interior Environments
Published in 2025, Brittany McNairy authored this peerreviewed article providing insights and transferable lessons learned using life-cycle assessments completed during the design and after project completion to understand
― Non-Profits and Associations
Selected Projects
Gender Justice Non-Profit
Washington, DC
The custom ceiling installation in the reception area is inspired by the wooden picket protest signs members used to advocate for change.
The elevator lobby gallery wall features photos and artifacts from the organization’s progressive beginnings.
Gender Justice Non-Profit
→
“Neighborhood hubs” foster collaboration and dialogue across teams while providing a wide array of workspaces where all can find an environment that equips them to thrive.
←
A community pantry features sunrise and sunset colors, providing a fresh start and soothing end to every day.
NORC
Washington, DC
Client: University of Chicago
Size: 18,700 square feet
Completion Date: 2025
Sustainability: LEED Gold ® (Tracking)
NORC’s work transforms data into insights that improve society. Our design does the same, using research-informed strategies to enhance well-being, support neurodiversity, and foster connection. The resulting workplace is a physical representation of the data and research that shaped it. ↑
Visitors to NORC’s office are greeted by the Happiness Wall, a large-scale installation visualizing 50 years of NORC’s research measuring happiness across the United States. www.norc.org/research/projects/gss.html
― WHAT IT IS Architecture as a physical representation of data
Inclusive planning embraces neurodiversity and provides a range of environments, from high-energy collaboration zones to quiet focus areas, empowering employees to choose how and where they work best.
Spatial Planning Gradient: Organizes the office along a highto low-stimulus continuum that supports neurodiverse workstyles and personal choice, reflecting NORC’s people-first culture.
←
The high-stimulous area of the office features open workstations, adjacent to a collaborative zones.
Whitman-Walker Health
Washington, DC
Max Robinson Center
Size: 77,500 SF
Completion Date: 2023
Sustainability: LEED ® ID+C Silver
Select Awards: Best of Competition, IIDA Healthcare Design Awards, 2024; Jurors’ Citation, AIA NoVA Design Awards, 2024
Whitman-Walker Health focused on serving the LGBTQ+ community in Washington, DC, provides stigma-free healthcare and legal services.
this spread:
Left: Spaces for staff were designed to promote collaboration and respite through access to natural daylight and places to informally gather and rest.
Right: Environmental graphic design, visible from the street, reinforce identity through photo murals, local “hero” graphics, and a variety of imagery and artifacts curated by WhitmanWalker’s community advisory council.
Images
Max Robinson Center
Sales profits from the retail pharmacy at 1525 14th Street are used by the center to help fund other programs, allowing Whitman-Walker to sustain its work and tackle new initiatives.
← ↑Whitman-Walker Health
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
The projects serve as a tangible expression of their four fundamental values: affirmation, vibrancy, dignity, and respect.
Images this page: Whitman-Walker Health at LIZ
Spanning more than 28,000 square feet, the center is divided into quarters with half of the space for administrative uses, one quarter for research and patient care, and another quarter for legal and benefits services.
Greenpeace USA Headquarters
Washington, DC
Client: Greenpeace USA
Size: 18,700 square feet
Completion Date: 2022
Awards: Sustainability Finalist, Fast Company, Innovation by Design Awards, 2024; Nonprofit Finalist Award, IIDA Mid-Atlantic Premiere Design Awards, 2024; FOCUS Project Awards, Sustainability Winner, ASID National Awards, 2024.
The workplace was conceived as a prototype for climate responsible interior fit-outs, demonstrating approaches to reducing embodied carbon within a modest budget.
― WHAT IT IS
The new headquarters achieved an impressive 54% reduction in embodied carbon, as well as designing for end of life disassembly and future re-use.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
The reduction in embodied carbon on the project is the equivalent of emissions from 64,409 pounds of coal being burned.
The design team created architectural details that would facilitate future changes and dismantlement of products and assemblies to ensure that materials can be recycled and salvaged at the end of the project lifespan.
U.S. Green Building Council Headquarters
Washington, DC
Client: U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)
Size: 13,535 square feet
Completion Date: 2021
Sustainability: LEED ID+C v4.1 Platinum; WELL v2 Platinum; TRUE net zero Waste Select Awards: Livable Building Award: Honorable Mention, Center for the Built Environment, 2025; Best Sustainable Project, NAIOP MD/DC Chapter, 2023; FOCUS Wellness Award, ASID National Awards, 2023; Jurors’ Citation, AIA DC Chapter Design Awards, 2023; Design with Purpose, IIDA Mid-Atlantic Chapter Premiere Design Awards, 2023
The design embodies the USGBC’s mission to reduce the negative impacts of the built environment while promoting health and well-being.
The new USGBC headquarters is a showroom for all the organization does. A ribbon wall embraces the public space and symbolizes the connectedness of sustainability, resilience, biophilia, and human well-being.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
The office provides hospitality and meeting areas for groups to gather and share experiences to move the green building industry forward.
The Knowledge Library is a public-facing resource that showcases the full inventory of innovative products and materials installed on the project (including an assortment of items reused).
Forming the backdrop to the public space, reused pieces from the original U.S. Green Building Council wood paneling were repurposed outside the Podcast Studio Working with the contractor on site, individual panels were selected to maintain parts of the engraved logo.
The Urban Institute
Washington, DC
Client: The Urban Institute
Size: 140,000 square feet
Completion Date: 2019
― WHAT IT IS
The Urban Institute, a think tank populated by leading researchers, moved from their office of nearly 30 years, into a light-filled modern headquarters with views to The Wharf.
The new headquarters location takes advantage of synergies with nearby HUD and DOT agencies which benefit from Urban’s research and programs.
― WHAT MAKES IT COOL
As an advocate for citizens living in poverty in urban environments, the headquarters facilitates both internal and external collaboration.
←
A large conference floor overlooks the new Wharf development and allows the Urban Institute space to showcase their research on a public level.
→
Custom, large-scale wall graphics on the interconnecting stairs feature maps that reflect the organization’s brand and mission.
― Non-Profits and Associations
Design Team
Catherine Heath
Northeast Regional
Workplace Practice Leader
catherine.heath@perkinswill.com Antony
Since 1935, we’ve believed that design has the power to make the world a better, more beautiful place.
That’s why clients and communities on nearly every continent partner with us to design healthy, happy places in which to live, learn, work, play, and heal. We’re passionate about human-centered design, and committed to creating a positive impact in people’s lives through sustainability, resilience, well-being, diversity, inclusion, and research. In fact, Fast Company named us one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in Architecture. Our global team of 2,700 creatives and critical thinkers provides integrated services in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and more. Our partners include Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen; retail strategy and design consultancy Portland; sustainable transportation planning consultancy Nelson\Nygaard; and luxury hospitality design firm Pierre-Yves Rochon (PYR).
