Hotel and Conference Center for Foreign Dignitaries

Abstract

Located along the bank of the Potomac River in Langley Virginia, this Hotel and Conference Center is a place of gathering and refuge for foreign dignitaries. Each building shares the characteristic of protruding volumes and surfaces reinforced by parallel load bearing masonry walls. These brick walls buffer the interior from the exterior and demarcate the program. Punched voids provide natural light. Each element including entry, wall, stair, column, and fireplace is designed to comply with the collective composition. The circulation is situated along the building's edge, thus guiding people from center to edge across diagonals and through corridors naturally lit from adjacent windows. Drawing played an essential role throughout the design. In the following drawings the process of design and discovery in architecture is intelligible. The question of "how" is more revealing than the question of "what."