Architect 50: Top 50 Firms in Sustainability

The Miller Hull Partnership, this year’s top firm in sustainability, received near-universal acclaim for its design of the Living Building Challenge (LBC)–certified Bullitt Center, which opened in 2013. A six-story office building with an oversized solar array on the roof, the Bullitt Center set a new standard for net-zero commercial buildings.

But the firm, founded in 1977 by David Miller and the late Robert Hull, is no one-hit wonder. Long before LEED and the LBC, Miller Hull was designing environmentally friendly buildings using passive heating and cooling strategies that the founding architects had discovered during Peace Corps stints in Brazil (Miller) and Afghanistan (Hull).

Still, the Bullitt Center has had a clear ripple effect. Miller Hull (collaborating with Lord Aeck Sargent) was recently commissioned to design a similar building, now under construction, for Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus. The 40,000-square-foot Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, which received top marks from the green project judges, aims to achieve LBC certification in part by employing a dramatic overhanging solar canopy that creates a shaded porch-like space over the building’s west entrance. The biggest challenge, says one of the firm’s partners, Brian Court, AIA, is meeting the LBC’s rigorous standards in Atlanta, with its sweltering heat and humidity. But he’s confident it can be done.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the firm recently renovated its own office space—in a converted 1910 warehouse in the city’s Pioneer Square neighborhood—to meet LBC Place, Materials, Beauty, and Equity Petal certifications. Miller Hull is also targeting Petal certification with the remodel of its San Diego-based studio. “We have to walk the walk,” says principal Margaret Sprug. “We need to be able to show our clients what we can do, even in an old warehouse building.”

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Miller Hull's renovated Seattle studio

Miller Hull also demonstrated its sustainability chops with its reliance on energy modeling in the early stages of project design and by submitting an energy report in 2017 as part of the AIA’s 2030 Commitment.

Of course, not every client is willing to go the LBC route, but Miller Hull’s focus on sustainability infuses every project. “Even with the smallest project,” Court says, “we can take all the research that’s gone into more complex projects and use it to raise the design to a higher level. All good design should include an environmental sense of mission and responsibility.”

Top 50 Firms in Sustainability

Sustainability Portfolio Judges

Vivian Loftness, FAIA, is a professor at Carnegie Mellon and the former head of the university’s School of Architecture. She has received the Sacred Tree Award from the U.S. Green Building Council and her work and research has focused on environmental design and sustainability and advanced building systems integration.

Stephanie Carlisle is a principal at KieranTimberlake and author of Embodied Energy and Design (Lars Müller Publishers, 2017). She led the materials database development for Tally, a custom app that calculates the environmental impacts of building material choices.