206.602.9355
Marie Crawford Miller
HEALTHY CONSTRUCTION
With building and construction producing more emissions than vehicles and 40% of energy in the U.S. and emitting more carbon than all the vehicles on the road, it's more important than ever that we design built environments as sustainably as possible.
Let me help you create buildings that are healthy for both people and the planet.
HEALTHY STORIES
Is your work making the world a better place? See my videos and portfolio materials for examples of how I can help tell your story to attract clients, increase profits, and inspire others. I'd love to help tell your story.
HEALTHY KNOWLEDGE
If you want to get a little or a lot more educated about environmental issues and the ways by which our daily actions or design activities can intervene in the current environmental crisis, I'm happy to work with individuals, small groups, or with your whole business. If your business needs some UX research insights in order to produce goods that are sources of delight, I can meet those needs, too.
I'd love to have the opportunity to work with you to help create the regenerative world we all want for our children and ourselves. Contact me and we'll go from there.
SERVICES
DESIGN, LEED-AP
CERTIFICATION, INTERIORS, PRESENTATIONS
I am a LEED-AP professional, and can successfully shepherd your project through the LEED certification process. I'm also adept at creating interior spaces tailored to each individual client while using the full breadth of my knowledge about sustainability and healthy interiors.
STORYTELLING
VIDEOS, WRITTEN MATERIALS, MULTI-MEDIA
Maybe you're a builder or architect who works on projects that provide housing or commercial spaces based on universal or sustainable design principles, or you provide services to organizations that are doing good in the world. I'd be honored to help you tell the story of what you do and why.
EDUCATION
RESEARCH, CLASSES, WORKSHOPS
Highly trained in UX research methods, I enjoy delving into what product or space users truly think about them so designers can make adjustments that increase functionality, pleasure, and yes, even sustainability features. I'm also excited to offer a wide range of educational services, from college mentoring to training workshops. Want to know how to make your home or workplace healthier? I've got you covered there, too.
RESUME
I'm an empathetic, detail-oriented, quasi-nerd who whispers "I love you" to plants and animals wherever I go. I'm annoyed by the excessive use of beige in American life. My knees went out from under me when I saw Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and I have a passion for architectural history, and I try to base my work on the following statements:
How we build our environments tells tells a story of what we believe in and how we want to shape the world.
How we live our lives tells the story of what we value, and what we want our legacy to be.
How much we educate ourselves tells the story of our commitment to making the world a better place.
EDUCATION
M.F.A. Design for Sustainability, 2022
Savannah College of Art and Design, GPA 3.94
M.S. Interior Design, University of Central Oklahoma
B.M.A. Vocal Music, University of Oklahoma
SENIOR SUSTAINABLE DESIGN SPECIALIST: HOK
LEED Certification for large-scale commercial projects
Manage consulting with multiple internal design teams on LEED and sustainable projects
Assist clients, engineers and contractors with sustainable design implementation
Manage implement office green operations plan
Support sustainable design education program and LEED AP credential maintenance
CO-FOUNDER AND SUSTAINABILITY CONSULTANT: MILLER INTERIOR DESIGN
Consultation on residential construction has shortened market times by up to two months.
Marketing and budget collaboration has resulted in project growth from the $10,000s to the lower millions.
Design consultation contributed to one of the first LEED Platinum certifications for homes in Seattle, WA.
Presentations at conferences and professional gatherings increased firm visibility and credibility.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR: SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
Used presentations and hands-on engagement engagement to educate up to 16 majors per cadre and 150 total students, teaching up to 35 credits annually.
Rewrote four studio courses, incorporating hands-on instruction, professional collaborations, and events.
Fully redesigned another six courses to incorporate the latest, most strategically targeted content, and sustainability wherever possible.
Collaborated with other professors to further sustainability presence on campus through special projects, a sustainability club, and presentations in other classes and in-service events.
Published written work in academic journals such as The Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences.
As the only full-time faculty member with an interior design background, served as the primary counsel in developing curriculum, under the supervision of the Program and Department Chair.
Advised and fostered relationships with over 40 learners per year, providing appropriate recommendations.
ADDITIONAL SKILLS
Adobe InDesign and Illustrator
Design and Systems Thinking
Contextual Design Research
Writing and Storytelling
Interviewing, Communication, and Workshops
Certifications from LEED, NCIDQ, Biomimicry 3.8, and Cradle to Cradle
INTERIOR DESIGN
"Objects designed to appeal to these needs (i.e. 'functional, social/positional goods') are often rapidly outdated and unsustainable. Beyond these 'middle-level' needs, however, there are the higher needs such as aesthetic and spiritual needs. Products conceived to refer to these can appeal to our highest potential and in doing so, the very factors that spur unsustainable practices in objects are overcome."
Stuart Walker
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
For the first project shown below, I worked with a team of 14 to create a functional compost system for Savannah College of Art and Design. It's an example of fourth domain design because the goal was not just to compost food waste, but to provide an intersection where students could see where their food came from, and where it went. It connected humans with the natural world.
The second project was one I completed with a team of three designers based in Milan and Paris.
My job was to help them see how to engage buyers, donors, and other members of the public in the broader ecological and cultural context of their products.
"Inequality is not an economic necessity, it's a design failure."
Kate Raworth
VISUAL STORYTELLING
I'm a writer and essayist, and take great delight in making complex concepts accessible to people who aren't quite as enthusiastic about academia as I am. Finding ways to tell sustainability and resilience stories based on shared values is critical to changing the cultural paradigm of disposability. Several essays are included on the first panel, while a children's book with accompanying pop-up and educational center are shown on the second.
GET A QUOTE
ALL PRICES CUSTOMIZED FOR EACH PROJECT
Please provide information about your project for an estimate of services. Prices vary depending on project type and scale. Flat fee or group packages as well as hourly rates are available for the following:
Climate or Business Storytelling: Written: $50/hour. Multi-media: Flat fees from $500. Flat fees from $5000 for video.
Education and mentoring: $50-$85/hour for individuals. Webinars vary.
Sustainability consulting for individuals begins at $40/hours and for businesses begins at $80/hour.
Interior design and UX research fees begin at $100/hr.
Business workshops starting at $1500.
LEED Certification fees vary depending on project, between $10,000-$25,000.
FURTHER
PORTFOLIO DETAILS
...it is a fact that the destruction of life is a part of the daily business of economic competition as now practiced. If one person is willing to take another’s property or to accept another’s ruin as a normal result of economic enterprise, then he is willing to destroy that other person’s life as it is and as it desires to be. That this person’s biological existence has been spared seems merely incidental; it was spared because it was not worth anything.
Wendell Berry
PRODUCT DESIGN &
BIOMIMICRY
The cooler shown below is one I designed using materials that were as sustainable as possible.
Check out the illustration for details.
The second panel shows a project I completed with a team focused on biomimicry. The design is meant to provide a portable shelter for someone who has become unhoused, and has features to accommodate the hot and muggy Savannah climate.
Wicked Problem: A class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with confusing values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing.
Horst Rittel - 1973
SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Telling Stories of Craftspeople to Reduce Disposability
Part of my MFA Thesis involved the creation of several short films in collaboration with my mentor and friend, Kyle Porter. The goal was to find craftspeople working as sustainably as possible to inspire people to purchase things that they connect with emotionally, that are not only physically but emotionally durable. If we shift our thinking toward buying things we want to pass down to our children, that enliven our hearts and empower our lives, we'll discover contentment in purchasing fewer things of greater quality and slow our unsustainable consumption practices as a byproduct of our own happiness. If you are a small business or are a craftsperson who'd like to share the story of the products you make, let me know and we can make it happen!
"Movement towards a 'post-product' society, i.e., to one distinguished by a more explicit social management of man-environment relations, is likely to bring back this historic sense of design's significance [as planning]. Design becomes once again a means of ordering the world rather than merely of shaping commodities"
Clive Dilnot
