WDG Architecture is a Washington, D.C., firm that traces its start to 1938, when Edwin Weihe opened Edwin Weihe & Associates. It now works out of an office on Connecticut Avenue in D.C. and another on Elm Street in downtown Dallas, offering architecture, master planning and interior design. The firm says it has a staff of more than 150 and has produced more than 500 major buildings, including office, multifamily, higher education, hospitality, institutional and mixed-use projects. Its history includes Marriott’s first hotel, the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, in 1957. In October 2026, WDG announced it’s now women- and minority-owned. It’s the architect on 5550 LBJ, a 435-unit mixed-income apartment project in North Dallas that High Street Residential started in October 2026.
Nearly 90 years in one city produces a long list of firsts. WDG developed the flat plate office design in the 1950s, designed Marriott’s first hotel in 1957 — the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel — appointed one of the first female principals in the Washington region back in the 1940s, and helped push the District of Columbia to adopt a National Building Code in 1984. Production moved to BIM with Revit in 2007.
The scale behind that is more than 150 people on staff, over 500 major buildings and more than 50 million square feet of office space, with work in 25 states. The Dallas office opened in 1998; the dedicated interiors arm, WDG Interior Architecture, was established in 2004. Architecture, planning and interiors are the three services.
A change worth noting: in October 2026 the firm announced it is now women- and minority-owned, and that it is pursuing women- and minority-owned business certification in the District, with Maryland and Virginia to follow. Those certifications are being sought, not yet granted — the firm’s own announcement is explicit about that.
Much of the current work is conversion. The Accolade at 1425 New York Avenue and Tempo by Hilton at 1776 K Street NW both take aging Washington office stock and turn it into something else, which is now one of the busier problems in the capital’s commercial market. Beyond that the sector spread covers multifamily, mixed use, student living, hospitality, office and government work, the last including the U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters.
Recognition clusters around a few buildings. JW Marriott Reston Station collected three honors in 2026: a ULI Washington Award for Excellence in mixed-use, an ENR MidAtlantic Best Project in residential and hospitality, and an ABC Metro Washington Excellence in Construction award in the mega project category. Union on Knox in College Park was named student housing Project of the Year at the Multifamily Executive awards. The HHMI Janelia Farm Research Apartments, completed in 2011, were the firm’s first LEED Platinum project and later took an AIA DC Washingtonian Residential Design Award. LEED-accredited staff work across the practice.
George Dove, the longest-serving managing principal, became a partner in 1978 and has since retired — a useful marker of how continuous the practice has been under its own name since Edwin Weihe opened it as Edwin Weihe & Associates in 1938.
