Advocating for Architecture

By Craig Curtis, FAIA, Partner
Tagged Architecture, Community | Comments (2)

November 28, 2011 – 11:58 am

As November comes to a close I’m reminded of two major fall events (other than the Apple Cup): the November election, and the AIA Seattle Honor Awards. David Miller already posted an excellent blog regarding the AIA Seattle awards program, commending our local chapter for its standout event. However, there was another fall AIA Seattle event worth blogging about.

Prior to the November election, AIA Seattle hosted a candidate forum for Seattle City Council candidates to hear from them on issues regarding the built environment. The event was held in our office and was co-hosted by the local chapters of ULI, AGC, and USGBC. All ten council candidates attended the event, and many of the leading architects in Seattle came out to hear what the candidates had to say.

The interesting coincidence that caused me to reflect on these two events was when on stage to receive an AIA Honor award for the Vancouver Community Library, I was happy to be shaking hands and sharing congratulations with Mark Reddington of LMN and Walter Schacht of Schacht Aslani, who also both won awards for outstanding buildings for local public institutions that evening. Both Mark and Walter are recognized design leaders in Seattle and are members of the AIA Public Policy Board (PPB), which I chair, and which sponsored the candidate forum. What can be interpreted from the fact that three of the five PPB members were receiving design awards? Why are design leaders so interested in advocacy?

The answer is simple: we share a passion for making a positive impact on our quality of life, whether that be for a community through the design of a new public building, or for a community through smart public policy.

Veterans Day 2011

By Stewart Germain
Tagged Community, Philanthropy | Comments (1)

November 11, 2011 – 3:05 pm

Veterans Day has always held a special significance for me. My grandfather flew the first fighter jets over Korea, and spent the rest of his career with the Air Force. From an early age, he instilled in me a deep sense of national pride and respect for those who have sacrificed to serve our country. When members of the Snoqualmie branch of the American Legion [Renton-Pickering Post #79] contacted me about helping them design a Veterans’ Memorial in downtown Snoqualmie, I was quick to jump on board.

We at Miller Hull participate in a program called The 1% through which a minimum 1% of our work is dedicated to pro bono activities. The Snoqualmie Veterans’ Memorial was a perfect candidate, and in addition to our donated services, the landscape architect, Jack Johnson of Outdoor Studio, as well as structural and civil engineers, Quantum Consulting Engineers and SvR Design, donated their work. In fact, across the board, the project has enjoyed a strong grass-roots support, with donations of time and materials coming from all corners of the Snoqualmie Valley.

The Memorial itself occupies a formerly vacant lot adjacent to American Legion Hall and across the street from the Snoqualmie City Hall. It includes a granite tablet engraved with names of all the known soldiers who fought for their country and hailed from the Snoqualmie river valley. There are six flags representing each branch of the armed services: Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. The flags are backed by a low curving stone wall, composed of local andesite, which was recently removed the bedrock below Snoqualmie Falls. There is also a living memorial in the form of a newly planted London Plane tree, surround by nine boulders. Each boulder comes from a different town in the valley, and is symbolic of these communities coming together to remember and honor those who fought to protect them.

Today, on Veterans Day (11/11/11), the Snoqualmie Valley Veterans’ Memorial was officially dedicated with an event that included guest speakers, a tribal blessing, a reading of the names, a three-volley salute, and the playing of taps by a local girl scout. Several hundred people came out to honor the Veterans and celebrate the new memorial. It is projects like these that make architecture and design rewarding for me: the level of community involvement, the participation is something bigger and greater than ourselves, and the creation of a lasting legacy. Such opportunities are an honor to participate in.

Architecture is not always about the building. In many cases such as this, it is about creating community space, and working with people.

Learning from Passive House

By Jim Hanford, AIA
Tagged Architecture, Bullitt Center, Innovation, Sustainability | Comments (8)

November 8, 2011 – 9:00 am

We have been fortunate over the last 2-1/2 years to be working on the Bullitt Center, a significant step forward — for us and hopefully for the industry — in the design of high performance buildings. The audacious goal is net zero energy use for a six-story urban office building. In addition to net zero energy, the project has a broader goal of achieving the Living Building Challenge, which takes a holistic approach to sustainable building design. This post will only focus on the net zero energy aspect of the building, and discuss some of the energy usage critiques by other industry players. The project is now under construction on Capitol Hill in Seattle and will be complete in 2012.

The design for the Bullitt Center has been an integrated process — seeking to reduce energy consumption through a balanced contribution of high efficiency envelope and mechanical system, passive systems such as operable windows and exterior blinds, lighting power reductions, reductions in plug loads through technology and controls, and operational changes by building tenants.

The resulting building is projected to use as much energy as can be produced on site by a rooftop PV array: approximately 230,000 kWh/year, for an EUI of 16 kBtu/SF-year when averaged across the Gross Floor Area (GSF). This extraordinarily low energy use is less than 20% of a typical Seattle office building. It is well below the level of any comparable North American office building and is consistent with what we know about the highest performing buildings in Europe. When considering the Treated Floor Area (TFA) — a European measure of interior occupied floor area — the EUI is approximately 21 kBtu/TFA-yr.

Passive House (or Passivhaus) has been discussed recently as a higher standard than net zero, or at least the best methodology for achieving the low energy use necessary for achieving net zero. In fact, there have been specific references to Passive House and the Bullitt project in published discussions in Fast Company and ArchDaily. While we welcome critiques of the project, the discussion in these blog posts is not as informed as it could be on the relative merits of this design approach.

By Dave Miller, FAIA, Founding Partner
Tagged Architecture, Awards, Community, Seattle | Comments (1)

November 4, 2011 – 9:13 am

I’ve been on more than 25 different award juries across the country. While I appreciate being a part of these panels, most of the award decisions are, due to time constraints, conducted in a vacuum. They’re typically a one-day affair, and are based on looking at pretty photographs. With AIA Seattle’s program, it’s four full days — it’s practically a forced march. But what that time allows for is to really give the projects scrutiny and care. The jurors are asked to physically visit as many projects as they can as a way to see how the projects’ function, not just how they look.

The professionals who judge the Honor Awards for Washington Architecture have extremely high credentials in design, and in recent years some have come from as far as Europe and Asia. To be recognized by your peers or people of this caliber is the highest honor you can receive.

The city itself plays a role in the quality of the award program as well. Seattle isn’t too big, yet it has a strong global influence and attracts extremely strong design professionals. The tenable size allows for people to come together in formal and informal ways, and people like Peter Miller, ARCADE functions, Space.city and other programs help build a strong community.

I believe that as a profession, architecture has been traditionally undervalued. We put in the long hours and have nearly the same amount of schooling as doctors and lawyers, yet are paid substantially less. Architects are constantly fighting for credibility, and once a year this award program gives validity to the art of the profession and our advancement of detail, materials, space and form.

It is for these reasons that I believe that with the exception of the national AIA Honor Award program, the AIA Seattle Honor Awards program is the best in the country. It also makes me ask the question: if we didn’t have as strong of a program, would the work be as good?

The Miller Hull Partnership won two 2011 Honor Awards: the Lott Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center in Olympia, Washington, and the Vancouver Community Library in Vancouver, Washington. Since AIA Seattle’s award program began in 1950, Miller Hull, founded in 1977, has won 40 of the awards.

Financial Design for Designers

By Susan Boyer
Tagged Architecture, Economics, Practice | Comments (0)

October 26, 2011 – 12:01 pm

After presenting the financials at my first quarterly partner meeting three years ago, there was a look in the partners’ eyes that was familiar to me. I recognized the look as the same one on the faces of my spouse and children after I would make a Saturday morning announcement that it was “housecleaning day.” It was abundantly apparent that my family did not share my enthusiasm for house cleaning, and the partners in our architectural firm did not share my passion for financial statements and pages of canned software reports of tabulated numbers.

Owners instinctively know what is happening in their firms. They know if revenue is trending up or down or employee utilization is above or below normal. However, financial reports and tools quantify trends, identify likely outcomes, and focus the leadership team on the most urgent issues. Ideally, the participants in a financial meeting walk away with an actionable agenda with each partner heading in the same direction at the same speed.

The partners cannot focus on implementing a successful strategy if the meeting turns into a discussion about data. My task as controller was to eliminate the glazed and quizzical looks on their faces. A story had to be told in a way that was relatable, and it had to be presented in a way that was visually pleasing; they are architects after all.

Currently, quarterly financials are bound like a project proposal with a cover. The first pages are an executive summary with bullet points and inserts. The remainder of the report is comprised of graphs and tables created with the liberal use of color, fonts, and lines. Each page is designed to describe an element of the financial picture and move one naturally to the next logical element.

At the most recent meeting, one of the partners joked that one of the other partners was being a great straight man for me. In other words, each question the partner asked led me to move the group to the next page of the hand-out to answer the question. Success! The handout told a story. The discussions at the quarterly meeting were then about how to manage the firm based on the data, not on the data itself. The bottom line of this story could be uttered by Jon Stewart, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga or any architect: remember your audience.

Africa: A New Perspective on World Travel

By Kim Shiell Young, AIA LEED AP
Tagged Community, Sustainability, Travel | Comments (12)

October 21, 2011 – 1:02 pm

Just a few weeks ago, I returned from the most amazing, eye-opening, and just plain fun experience of my life. My husband and I spent two weeks at Antelope Park, in the midlands of Zimbabwe, volunteering with the African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT), a four-stage lion rehabilitation and release into the wild program. I’ve always wanted to go to Africa for as long as I can remember and witness the continent’s extraordinary beauty and incredible wildlife, but the more I thought about it and the more I researched it, the more I realized I did not want to just be an observer; I wanted to be involved in Africa, to dirty my hands and expand my mind.

Miller Hull offers a Length of Service Award when employees reach their five and 10 year anniversaries at the firm in the form of a travel stipend. The purpose is to get away, to get inspired and to bring back renewed enthusiasm, energy, and a fresh perspective. The obvious route for an architect is to go see any of the myriad of architectural gems, old and new, the world over. But with the firm’s blessing (and a bit in advance of my 10-year anniversary), I was able to explore my other passion: wildlife conservation. It’s not such a far stretch. Sustainable building and environmental sensitivity is a requirement of architecture today and a signature of Miller Hull’s work before it was ever fashionable. As human populations swell, communities develop and the natural environment — its flora and fauna — can be, and often is, sacrificed. Deforestation occurs. Water sources are cut off. Migration paths are blocked. Animals go extinct. Architecture and conservation are intertwined and in Africa, the human — wildlife conflict is a problem of outstanding proportions.

The lion population is decreasing at an alarming rate: from 200,000 lions throughout the continent of Africa in the 1970s to somewhere between 20,000-30,000 today. That’s a decrease of 80-90 percent in just four decades. Several countries have lost their lion populations completely, and several others are expected to lose their populations in the next decade if nothing is done to save this most iconic of all animals.

ALERT is trying to save lions and offers an amazing opportunity for people to lend a hand while experiencing travel in a completely unique way. You work hard, really hard. Our work days were 12 hours long starting at 6:30am, and in two weeks we only had one afternoon off on the 10th day (come to think of it, maybe the schedule is not so different from architecture!) You work alongside the local staff and get to hear their stories, share laughs, and make friends. You also work alongside other volunteers from all over the world, bonded in our love and appreciation for this vulnerable species. And, yes, we got to work with lions — something I never imagined I would ever have the honor of doing.

We went on daily walks with the cubs (it gets them out in the bush and hones their hunting skills), and collected behavioral data. We cleaned lion enclosures, prepared the meat they eat, repaired fences and roads, and went on snare sweeps. We were privileged to take out some of the adolescent lions at night and witness them stalking and successfully killing prey. We were able to go out with the research team to collect data on ALERT’s Stage 2 release pride, the Ngamo pride. We also had the opportunity to spend time with the four rescued elephants at the park, and go horseback riding through the bush.

Working up close and personal with lions is without a doubt, a top highlight of my life that will be difficult to out-do. It is absolutely magical to interact with these amazing cats. But what I didn’t anticipate is how this would alter my perspective on travel. Maybe we didn’t see all the major sites the guidebooks recommend, but we stayed in one place and really got to know it until it felt like home. We met the people who work, live, and struggle in a country that has seen, and continues to see, so much turmoil. And yet, you realize everyone is the same, and everyone wants the same things: decent work at a decent wage, the ability to feed their families and send their children to school, the need to find some laughter and joy in life.

We had minimal internet access, we had power outages daily, and we had few useful tools for repair work. We were hot, sweaty, dirty, and exhausted, and yet there was nowhere else we’d rather be. The only thing that mattered was the lions and to know that, maybe, in some tiny way, we were helping this amazing species to not only survive, but to once again thrive.

And ultimately, it wasn’t just about the lions. It’s also about the human spirit. Meeting people who have less than we do in the form of possessions and freedoms, and yet their spirit and good nature soared above those with seemingly so much more. It was a beautiful lesson to learn in a severely damaged country, where there is a group of dedicated people working tirelessly to save Africa’s heritage.

If you’d like to know more about our trip, ALERT, and the perilous future of lions, follow our personal blog: Africa or Bust!