Should Congress Have to Live Together?

There’s no shortage of ideas for how to fix congressional dysfunction, including campaign-finance and ethics reform. But two DC architects, Andrew Linn and Jack Becker of the studio BLDUS, have a different solution: Why not make members of Congress live together?

As part of a design lab they taught at the Virginia Tech School of Architecture last semester, Linn and Becker charged students with designing the “House’s House,” a neighborhood for Congress members and other Hill employees. The proposal would use existing surface parking lots to build a mixed-use community around the Hill.

Life on the Hill could be transformed. Representatives would mingle as they drop their children off at school, go shopping and do laundry, or duck into a conference room for a meeting. The two political parties don’t agree on much, said Linn when we met up with him in December, his point underscored by the fact that Congress was at that moment trying to prevent a government shutdown before the holidays. “But the benefits of living and spending time together is one of those things.”

The idea has precedent. Rory Cooper, former communications director for then–House majority leader Eric Cantor, has praised the merits of dorm-style housing, in part because the high cost of the area’s real estate can discourage people who aren’t wealthy from running for office. And, at the recommendation of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, lawmakers recently added three coworking spaces on the Hill as part of an effort to increase bipartisanship.

Linn and Becker have met with former Colorado representative Ed Perlmutter, who served on the committee, to press their concept. They’re well aware of the odds—making such an ambitious project happen would require overcoming the exact partisan enmity the plan is intended to combat. But they still believe that it’s worth pushing for a reenvisioned Capitol Hill, one that boasts fewer surface parking lots and more social interaction among lawmakers. Says Linn: “It’s an idea that in a slightly altered political climate might have legs.”

This article appears in the February 2025 issue of Washingtonian.

Eric Wills

Home Editor