Robert Hull, the award-winning architect and one of the founding partner of The Miller Hull Partnership, has passed away while in South Africa at the age of 69. He was the creative force behind the majority of the firm's public projects and community buildings. In his honor, let's take a look around the Seattle area at just some of the buildings that will be the joint-winner of the American Institute of Architects' Seattle Medal of Honor's lasting legacy. Check out the full list of projects he was involved with here.
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Mapping The Local Legacy Of Architect Robert Hull

Bullitt Center
The first urban building of its kind and commonly regarded as ‘the greenest office building in the world’— not only represents the level of sustainability possible in a city setting, it signifies a shift in the actual process of how buildings are designed and demonstrates the range of opportunities for inventiveness and creativity that are possible when integrated design teams target aggressive efficiency goals.
Epiphany School
Certified as LEED Gold, the school includes photovoltaic panels and fans, a green roof, natural ventilation, green furniture and a sustainable land management plan. As a complement to its sustainable features, a curriculum has been developed by the faculty to use the building as a teaching tool for sustainability and energy conservation. A prominent meter wall is located in the building with educational text and graphics where students can chart the building's water, gas, electric and solar power usage.
Conibear Shellhouse
The University of Washington Conibear Shellhouse Renovation and Addition completed construction in April 2005. The site, once on the edge of a city dump, is surrounded by newly restored wetlands with pathways that link to an existing nature walk providing public access to the shoreline. The renovation retained the structural steel frame from the original 1949 building at the 11,000 s.f. shell storage bays, and demolished the remainder.
Seattle Pacific University Science Building
The ground floor of the new science building is designed to invite all students and faculty into the building. The Garden Vestibule, Discovery Room and Study Room together form a chain of “common” spaces, designed to link the sciences with the activity of the general campus. The Laboratory Sciences building is a high-touch, high-tech facility. Lab environments will focus on hands-on macro scale experimentation to better equip students with the practical skills needed in the workplace.
Discovery Park Visitors Center
Miller Hull worked closely with the Seattle Department of Parks & Recreation and the Discovery Park Advisory Committee to ensure that this center fulfills its mission and promotes a genuine appreciation of this very special natural resource. Public activities within the center will take place in the exhibit space off the lobby, Discovery Room (for children), classrooms, a multipurpose room, and an outdoor gathering porch and its adjacent "green."
Fisher Pavillion
The new pavilion is over 14,000 S.F. of flat floor exhibition space with nearly twenty feet clear height intended for a wide variety of festivals, conferences, exhibitions and catered events. The unit pavers covering the 19,000 S.F. Rooftop Plaza, which is accessible on grade from the adjacent street, are designed in a pixilated matrix pattern to simulate an image of water droplets in a pond when viewed from the Space Needle above. Two concrete “pylons” with glazed canopies – designed to accommodate elevators and mechanical equipment – mark the entries into and onto the building.
The Open Window School
Located on a spectacular site on Cougar Mountain, the school commands sweeping views of the Puget lowlands. Such a unique setting led Miller Hull to focus on two traditional strengths emphasizing the relationship between building and landscape, and practicing environmentally progressive design. Both the construction of the buildings and the utilization of the land around them are, in this way, seen as an extension of the school’s educational mission.
Vashon Island Transfer & Recycling Station
This project is a model of sustainable design and construction, maximizing resource efficiency and minimizing environmental impact. Important design considerations were the choice of building materials (recycled and recyclable concrete and steel), and the desire to fit this large structure unobtrusively and sensitively within the island community.
King County Library Service Center
The three story building mass is configured to engage the main arterial in the area, Newport Way. The north-south oriented building screens the 100 car parking area from passing vehicles on Newport Way. Pedestrians and bicyclists using the planned bike trail on Newport Way can view the activities going on inside the building, a rare occurrence in this suburban business office zone. A preserved wetland on the east edge of the property can be viewed from the office space on all three floors as well as from the building's board room and staff lounge.
Bainbridge Island City Hall
Design issues included the desire to fit the 24,000 s.f. building into a mostly residential scaled street, and to respond to the local vernacular architectural character. In addition, there were strong public sentiments that the building not be an expensive monument, yet still have a strong civic presence.