Ki is the Japanese name for the life energy that flows through the body. When the Ki is blocked, illness results, according to Eastern theory.
For Chicago architect Mark A. Miller, keeping this energy flowing is imperative.
When Miller designs living and working spaces, he is influenced by his training in Zen disciplines, including Aikido, a martial art that seeks to achieve self-defense without injury to attackers.
He believes that “grounding” and “centering” and other aspects of martial arts and disciplines, such as yoga and t’ai chi ch’uan, can be applied to building design so that living or working in a space can promote health, harmony and tranquility. That involves taking into account the Ki.
“The spaces I design are designed to make the flow of this energy more obvious to the everyday person,” says Miller, a tall man with a cropped beard who listens as intensely as he talks. “The forms of the architecture are all curvaceous. … If we want to visualize energy flowing through a space, it’s a much softer and more comfortable experience to walk with curves guiding you rather than sharp corners.”
In an office setting, this translates into something gentler than square cubicles and harsh lighting. For BHI Design in the West Loop, Miller created a circular space with cubicles that curve high next to individual computers for privacy and then swoop down low to allow for interaction with co-workers.
For Foodstuffs, a Glenview gourmet shop, Miller coped with the rectilinear shape by building curved wood soffits on the exposed ceiling to help establish a flowing traffic pattern around a curved island and display nooks.
In living environments, Miller strives to establish the same sort of flow and even more of a connection to nature.
This can be a real challenge in crowded urban areas where houses sit on narrow lots with tiny yards. But David and Sharon Turrentine, who hired Miller to remodel their kitchen and build a small addition to their bungalow on Chicago’s Northwest Side, say that the unusual architect was up to the task.
“We did not have a lot of space to work with,” says Sharon Turrentine. “It’s sort of like two rectangular shapes, and he put a soffit in the ceiling, a big curve that’s six inches lower than the ceiling, (which guides) you from the first into the second rectangular part. It keeps everything moving like a river. And he even built one wall that continues out through the sun doors into the back yard as part of the fence so that it is one big flow.
“Mark talked a great deal about making the home your sanctuary and bringing the garden into the home and the home into the garden. That was hugely important to us. He brought more light in, and it has made all the difference in this house.”
Miller says he uses the martial arts as a metaphor.
“Eastern philosophy says do these different things and you will gain some enlightenment. One of the obvious first things is making a separation from normal life, and that is seen in the martial arts as shedding your street clothes and putting on a uniform so everyone looks the same. The next step is 5 or 10 minutes of seated meditation, so that you have a chance to forget your everyday worries and your mind is freed up to be receptive to higher levels of awareness.
“Another aspect that the East is famous for is an appreciation of nature, so my interest as an architect is how can I bring more of the natural experience to people’s living environments.”
Miller grew up in Skokie, and as a child he enjoyed building things with blocks and Lego sets. His great-grandparents and grandmother were musicians, and Miller played the trombone while growing up. “I saw the way my teacher practiced six hours a day to polish his skills, because music is such a competitive field, and I really couldn’t see practicing that religiously every day even if I had the flu or I broke my arm,” Miller says.
“I always had ideas for the tasks at hand, and I was always working with my hands. You put those two things together with music and you come up with architecture.”
Miller’s ideas about nature developed while he was an architecture student at the University of Arizona, where he also began studying karate. He chose Arizona in part because it had a strong emphasis in solar design.
“Living in Arizona influenced me,” he says. “You wake up every day, and you see the mountains. You saw families taking their kids out to the mountains to watch the sun set over the valley. People lived in a slower gear and valued being out in nature and enjoying what life has to offer us rather than hustling and bustling at work 40 to 80 hours a week.”
His first job after graduation was with the famous Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg, the designer of Marina City and River City who favored naturalistic shapes over dehumanizing boxes.
“(His architecture) strikes a chord in me and he was really the only architect I wanted to work for,” Miller says.
“Most Westerners do not have the same appreciation of nature as our Eastern counterparts do. It’s not embedded in our Western religion.
“Unfortunately, we missed out quite a bit by not listening to what the Native Americans had to say. They truly lived in harmony with nature and realized their place as guardians of nature. We’ve pillaged and raped the landscape for short-term profit and this is why our air is becoming unbreathable and our water is becoming undrinkable and species of animals are disappearing. To me, it’s horribly out of control.”
This concern for the environment also informs Miller’s architectural work. He decries the typical look-alike suburban subdivisions that he says are designed to squeeze maximum profit out of pieces of land rather than to enhance the lives of the people who dwell in the houses.
Most of those buildings, he says, are not “well-grounded.” He cites some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work as an example of how it should be done. “You’ll notice in Robie House and other homes he made that there are terraces outside the building itself that have planters and walkways,” he says, “and so it makes a natural transition from the ground where the grass is to a step where the terrace is and then the final step into the house.
“As a comparison, homes you see in Buffalo Grove, for example, won’t have any transition from the lot to where the house sits. You see all four walls come straight down into the ground. There are rarely ever bushes or terraces. All of that has been stripped away.”
Besides Bertrand Goldberg, Miller also has worked with architect Andrew Spatz of Evanston, and the two still collaborate at times. But recently, Miller, in an unusual move for a 33-year-old architect, branched out on his own, seeking clients who “can appreciate and have an interest in the outdoors. Perhaps they get massages or do tai chi, yoga, meditation or who are religious or spiritual.”
Miller takes on more standard projects as well, and he also builds most of his projects himself, rather than handing them over to a general contractor.
“That way the design can be tweaked as it’s being built and problems that arise in the field are handled easily and you have more control over how the budget is being used.”
Miller himself lives on the top floor of a 1920s condominium in Rogers Park, where he says character, including a fireplace and a 25-foot long balcony for growing plants, makes up for the square rooms.
He continues to be a student of Zen, Taoism and Confucianism and recently started doing yoga in addition to aikido.
“I just get more spirituality out of Eastern philosophy than I do from the Western ones that I was brought up with,” he says.
Commercial photographer Art Wise, whose River West photo studio Miller designed, met the architect in an aikido class. Wise notes that aikido is studied for more than just the ability to defend oneself.
“The principles that you learn in aikido apply to everyday life,” Wise says.
“One of the principles involved in aikido is harmony. Trying to find the right balance and the right flow in an aikido movement is something that you practice your entire lifetime in order to accomplish. I think (Miller) is trying to work that same kind of feeling through his architecture. He’s trying to work out something where everything is integrated in his life in terms of his philosophy and his architecture. It’s a very deep-seated thing for him.”
