This design and its prominent location—tying together a series of public monuments—preserves the L’Enfant master plan city grid with the suggestion of three connected buildings, allowing two streets to run through the complex and maintain the continuity of the neighborhood. The team worked in continuous collaboration with the client and civic groups and within tight urban constraints—including the placement of one story below grade to meet the 110 foot height restriction. While the architecture is modernistic on a monumental scale, the grand entry atrium façade opposite The Carnegie Library is a fitting invitation to a new national meeting place. Generous fenestration and placement of concourses, registration areas, and lobbies around the perimeter reveal the activity inside to the streets outside. As Washington DC’s largest building, the center reestablished the city’s place in the meetings and convention industry, and has created new economic opportunity for the surrounding neighborhood. The center has received the prestigious American Institute of Architects (AIA) Design Award for Architecture and the Urban Land Institute’s 2006 Award of Excellence.