Art Grice
The Miller|Hull Partnership meld modernism, environmental sensit…
Miller|Hull’s public work has given it a high profile in the region, but the firm has stood at the center of Seattle’s architectural community almost since its founding. “When we were all younger, we used to meet once a month and present our work to each other,” says James L. Cutler, FAIA, of Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based Cutler Anderson Architects, who has competed amicably with Miller|Hull ever since. Partner Norm Strong served as president of the AIA’s Seattle chapter (and later as AIA National vice president). Through his long affiliation with the University of Washington, where he now chairs the Department of Architecture, Miller has influenced a generation of young architects. He also documented the movement of which his firm is a part in his 2005 book, Toward a New Regionalism: Environmental Architecture in the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Press, $35). “The firm’s partners have been incredibly influential among architects like myself, who wanted to follow in their footsteps,” says Lane Williams, AIA, of Seattle-based COOP 15. “They have a great feel for materials, and long before building green became popular, they had a great feel for the environment.”
Miller|Hull’s environmental focus continues to deepen. Having long toiled toward the goal of net-zero energy use, the firm has now begun to apply the same standard to water use. “Water—that’s the latest holy grail,” Hull says. But Miller|Hull has never been a green architecture firm, per se. The principals characterize their approach as emphatically rational. Each Miller|Hull project explores a set of problems, paring away extraneous matter until nothing remains but the essential solution. “We’ve always been strong structuralists,” Hull explains, and not simply in revealing engineering loads. Whether they be gravitational, climatic, biological, or cultural, “we’re always trying to express in our architecture these forces with which we’re working.”
milestones 1980: Founded firm
1982: Mercy Earth Shelter Residence sets course of environmentally responsible design
1990: Novotny Cabin earns nationwide recognition; David Miller, FAIA, becomes associate professor at the University of Washington
1998: AIA/COTE Top Ten Award, Patagonia Distribution Center
1999: Monograph, Ten Houses (Rockport Press); AIA National Honor Award, Olympic College
2000: AIA National Honor Award, Point Roberts Border Station; AIA/COTE Top Ten Award, Bainbridge Island City Hall
2001: First multifamily project: 1310 E. Union Lofts; monograph, Miller|Hull: Architects of the Pacific Northwest (Princeton Architectural Press)
2003: AIA National Architecture Firm Award; AIA/COTE Top Ten Award, Fisher Pavilion
2004: AIA/COTE Top Ten Award, Pierce County Environmental Services Building
2005: Norman Strong, FAIA, LEED AP, elected AIA National vice president
2009: Monograph, The Miller|Hull Partnership: Public Works (Princeton Architectural Press); Miller elected 2010 chair of National COTE Advisory Group
