You know we first heard about the new US Embassy in London project in I believe it's 2007. We knew that a project was coming along; we had been following Department of State requests for proposals along the way. In 2008 we received a telephone call from a colleague who encouraged Steve Kieran and myself and the firm to pursue this new project. He said "You know, you really would be ideally suited to at least be in the competition. I'd encourage you to join."

We received the RFP in early/late 2008 - 2009. We submitted our qualifications amongst thirty nine other architects. The Department of State whittled those down to twelve. They interviewed the twelve architects, and then they whittled, you know reduced that group down to four and asked the four to compete, and the four that were asked to compete included KieranTimberlake, Thom Mayne and Morphosis, Pei Cobb Freed and Richard Meier & Partners. And in early-mid 2009 we all came over to London for a briefing, after a briefing in Washington DC. We had a series of meetings with the Department of State, and the Department of State, as we developed the competition design, which lasted approximately about five and a half months of duration, with several meetings down in Washington along the way with each of the teams, and then submitted that design at the end of 2009.