Original Construction
1973
Project Completion
2007-2025
Size
130,000 sqft

The Octagon House is a National Historic Landmark built in 1801, having served as the temporary White House in the early 1800s and as the signing site of the Treaty of Ghent. It became home to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1889 and gained national prominence in 1902 as the first American building targeted for a major preservation effort. Today, it anchors the AIA campus alongside the adjacent 1973 Mid-Century Modern headquarters building. In 2007, the AIA launched a best-practice renewal initiative to modernize the workplace and retrofit the Modernist structure for sustainability, all while safeguarding its historic integrity to enable its future listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

To lead this landmark renewal, HopkinsBurns Design Studio was commissioned as the Historic Preservation consultant under the direction of Tamara Burns, AIA. The firm created a Cultural Landscape Report, a Historic Structure Report, and an Existing Conditions Evaluation, establishing vital guidelines during the modernization to respect each building’s heritage. By protecting the character-defining features of the headquarters under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, HopkinsBurns created a model for benchmarking historic relevancy for tens of thousands of similar structures around the country. This documentation was submitted to the State Historic Preservation Office in Washington DC, earning strong support and enabling the renewal project to move forward as a newly designated Historic District.