For decades, the public face of the federal government has been defined by dense paperwork, clunky websites, and uninspiring service centers. From IRS forms to passport renewals, the experiences most Americans encounter often feel like relics of a pre-digital era.
That could be about to change. On August 21, President Trump signed an executive order launching America by Design, a sweeping initiative to rethink how Americans interact with their government. At the center of this effort is a new role—Chief Design Officer of the United States—filled by Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder, graphic and industrial designer, and serial entrepreneur.
For architects and designers, Gebbia’s appointment signals a dramatic cultural shift: the federal government is no longer treating design as window dressing. Instead, it is positioning design leadership at the very heart of public service.
A Designer with Global Reach
Gebbia’s track record explains why Washington turned to him. As Airbnb’s co-founder, he helped transform a rough idea into a platform that reshaped global travel, used by hundreds of millions of people across 190+ countries.
He has long championed clarity, simplicity, and human-centered design—principles he traces back to his time at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he immersed himself in art, graphic design, and industrial design. A defining moment came when he defied a professor’s instructions by building full‑sized chairs instead of scale models. That project emphasized pushing boundaries and embracing ambition—hallmarks of his creative mindset.
Boundaries and embracing ambition have always defined Joe Gebbia’s creative mindset. Deeply inspired by the Bauhaus movement and by designers like Charles and Ray Eames, Gebbia arrived at the Rhode Island School of Design intending to become a fine artist. That changed when he discovered industrial design—and more specifically, when he encountered the Eameses’ work for the first time.
He recalls opening an orange-covered book on the top 100 designs of the 20th century and seeing the LCW Chair, Charles and Ray Eames’s now-iconic molded plywood masterpiece. “My jaw dropped,”Gebbia said.“I thought, I need to know who made that, where that came from. And that kicked open the door to these two brothers, Ray and Charles. Obviously, I eventually realized they were husband and wife.”
Gebbia became captivated by their ethos: “Create the best design for the most people for the least price. Democratize design for the masses.” That philosophy has stayed with him throughout his career and directly influenced his decision to support the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and sharing the Eameses’ legacy.
Drawing from personal experiences at the Eames Ranch, Gebbia provided crucial financial support to help launch the Institute, ensuring that midcentury design practices and the Eameses’ creative spirit remain accessible to future generations. “Let’s just say Ray and Charles have been part of my life and will continue to be part of my life,”he said.“I’ll do whatever I can to help other people discover their lessons. I’m in it for the long-term.”
Design as Strategy: The Eameses and the U.S. Government
Charles and Ray Eames developed a close relationship with the U.S. government, where their design expertise intersected with federal needs for communication, education, and innovation. Starting in World War II, when their Eames Office designed lightweight molded plywood leg splints and stretchers for the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. These projects marked some of the first practical uses of their now-famous plywood techniques, blending modern industrial design with urgent wartime needs.
In the decades that followed, the Eameses became key figures in Cold War–era cultural diplomacy and education. They created multimedia films and exhibitions for the U.S. Information Agency, including Glimpses of the USA (1959) for the American National Exhibition in Moscow, which presented American life and technology to Soviet audiences. Their work extended to World’s Fairs—such as the 1964 New York World’s Fair and Expo ’67 in Montreal—and to educational collaborations with agencies like the Department of Education, using design to communicate science, innovation, and modern life to the public
Why This Matters: From the GSA to a New Design Era
The federal government isn’t starting from zero on design. For decades, the General Services Administration (GSA) has managed federal buildings, overseen architecture and construction standards, and administered programs like Design Excellence, which brought leading architects into high-profile federal projects. Yet the GSA’s mandate has focused primarily on real estate, procurement, and individual buildings, not on the holistic user experience across federal services.
Gebbia’s Chief Design Officer role signals a shift from brick-and-mortar oversight to human-centered design leadership at the scale of the entire federal government—spanning digital interfaces, physical spaces, and the integration between them. Where the GSA ensured efficiency and quality in facilities, America by Design aims to reimagine how citizens experience government itself, from a passport office’s layout to the usability of IRS forms online.
In an interview with Bloomberg News in June, Gebbia described much of the federal bureaucracy as a “design desert.”
Lessons from Samara: A Blueprint for Change
When Joe Gebbia spun Samara out of Airbnb in 2022, the move signaled that his ambitions stretched well beyond hospitality. Samara’s flagship project, Backyard, is a line of net-zero accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—430- to 550-square-foot prefab homes built off-site and delivered turnkey to homeowners in California. These units marry high design with industrial efficiency: streamlined permitting, factory precision in a Mexicali modular facility, and installation timelines measured in weeks, not months.
The architectural world took notice. In 2024, TIME named Backyard one of its Best Inventions, praising its seamless customer experience and sustainable design ethos. That project wasn’t just about architecture—it was about reimagining a fragmented, permit-heavy process into something coherent and frictionless. Exactly the kind of thinking federal services—from passport offices to the IRS—desperately need.
But for Gebbia, the real innovation wasn’t just aesthetic or environmental. It was systemic. “Mobile apps and websites are the front door to the government for most Americans,” he told Axios. “It’s an injustice that our interfaces are horribly out of date. There’s no reason why our government can’t be a standard for great design.”
The same mindset—removing friction, scaling beauty, democratizing access—runs through Gebbia’s earlier projects at Airbnb Samara, the company’s in-house innovation lab. The Yoshino Cedar House in rural Japan, designed with architect Go Hasegawa, turned a declining forestry village into a living, breathing host community.
It was Gebbia’s way of reimagining hospitality as civic infrastructure. Located in the rural town of Yoshino, where the forestry industry was in decline, the project invited the entire town to become a host. The house functioned not just as lodging but as a community hub, integrating local artisans’ craftsmanship, locally brewed sake, and traditional materials like cedar to showcase regional culture. As Gebbia explained, “We’ve found a way to create a pathway for different parts of our community to help support each other—and it happens to be a piece of architecture.” By connecting visitors with residents, the project embodied Airbnb’s vision of travel where guests don’t just stay in a place—they belong to it, even if only for a moment.
From there, his focus widened to humanitarian work. In 2016–17, he helped launch Experience Amman with NGOs and local organizations in Jordan to train underemployed Jordanians and recently resettled refugees as Airbnb hosts. Airbnb also collaborated with the USAID Jordan Local Enterprise Support Project (LENS) to create a “Local Experiences” platform connecting travelers with community-led activities across Jordan—from painting ostrich eggs in Azraq to making labaneh and ceramics with the Iraq Al Amir Women’s Association. However, with recent administrative cuts to USAID funding, it remains unclear whether similar partnerships could emerge at the federal level under Gebbia’s leadership.
Together, these projects show how Samara became a blueprint for Gebbia’s philosophy of “enlightened empathy”—the idea that thoughtful design, whether a home, a digital interface, or a refugee housing network, can remove barriers and create systems where beauty and function serve people at scale.
However, while Airbnb and USAID worked closely on this initiative, it’s unclear whether Joe Gebbia would pursue similar partnerships in his new federal role, especially given recent administrative cuts to USAID funding that have limited such international development collaborations.
Together, these projects show how Samara became a blueprint for Gebbia’s philosophy of “enlightened empathy”—the idea that thoughtful design, whether a home, a digital interface, or a refugee housing network, can remove barriers and create systems where beauty and function serve people at scale. It’s the same thinking he now brings to the White House, where America’s digital front doors may be next in line for a design revolution.
What This Means for the Federal Government
The executive order by the White House sets a bold deadline: by July 4, 2026, federal agencies must overhaul thousands of websites, service centers, and public-facing spaces. A newly created National Design Studio will set standards, recruit top design talent, and ensure the redesign isn’t just cosmetic—it’s systemic.
Early reports suggest 26,000 federal websites and countless physical service points could be affected. For architects, this could open opportunities in wayfinding systems, spatial branding, digital-physical integration, and even rethinking the visual identity of federal buildings and services.
As Gebbia put it: “Design is not decoration; it’s infrastructure for trust.” That ethos could transform not only how government looks—but how it works.
A Cultural Pivot for Washington—and a Call to Architects
While the federal government has long had initiatives like the GSA’s Design Excellence Program—known for elevating the quality of federal buildings—design has rarely extended into the broader realm of federal service delivery. Policy priorities and procurement cycles have often overshadowed usability, aesthetics, and user experience in everything from websites to service centers. Gebbia’s appointment signals an expansion of design thinking beyond physical architecture into digital and civic services, suggesting a future where federal buildings, online platforms, and public-facing services share a cohesive, user-centered design language.
Architectural and digital designers alike may soon be called to create federal service centers, interfaces, and civic spaces that finally speak the same design language—merging hospitality-level user experience with security and efficiency. Some in the architecture community are already calling this a potential “moonshot for civic design.”
The Stakes for Design and Democracy
Gebbia has said the goal is to make federal services “as satisfying to use as the Apple Store.” But the implications go deeper. For architects and designers, this is an invitation to see public service as design service—to treat every federal building, every website, every touchpoint as part of a national project to rebuild trust, transparency, and accessibility through design.
If successful, America by Design could transform not just the aesthetics of government, but the civic experience itself—turning bureaucratic frustration into something closer to civic pride.
