The Howard Hughes Communities Regional Office in Downtown Columbia has been named Best Interior at the 2026 CREDA Maryland Awards of Excellence, presented April 22 at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. The award is shared by Howard Hughes Communities and BCT Design Group, with construction by MacKenzie Contracting Company.

Howard Hughes Communities is a company rooted in building places where people come together, and our Interiors Studio designed their regional office to work the same way. The previous layout kept teams apart. The new one is organized around overlap: an open floorplan with a library, huddle rooms, a café, and gathering spaces that put people in each other’s path, with glazed moveable partitions so the whole floor stays connected to daylight.

The office sits in the Merriweather District, and the design is specific to it. Natural materials and curated lighting set the tone, live plants and acoustic treatment make it comfortable to work in, and a collection of art, including a hand-painted mural of the original Columbia development plan, ties the space back to the place it belongs to.