Lectures
DePaul University | Honors Green Design/Bicycle Chicago | Jason Greenberg, Ass’t Professor
“Population Growth & Responses to Resource Depletions”
Mark delivers a lecture exploring how issues of sustainability aren’t just for the few, but must be applied by the masses. He reviews several of the firm’s Energy Star rated projects in discussing specific techniques and strategies used in his everyday architectural work. Finally he gives an overview of the green movement, looking at how the current situation arose and how the thinking of Buckminster Fuller has laid the groundwork for much of today’s practice.
Sacred Heart Foundation | Planet Earth Resource Center | Chicago, IL
Whole Life Exposition + Conference | Rosemont Convention Center, Rosemont, IL
If you have ever studied martial arts, yoga or meditation or received a professional massage or acupuncture, you may have experienced an increase in your spiritual awareness and the internal phenomenon of KI (chi) flow. Using a fascinating slide presentation of existing architecture as well as his own work, Mark A. Miller will illustrate how themes found in the philosophies of spiritual practices can influence architecture to offer similar experiences to its users, especially within their homes.
AIA Chicago Health PIA | Emerging Horizon Lecture Series | Chicago, IL
Zen in the Art of Architecture
Can Eastern philosophies that underpin so many alternative therapies be successfully integrated into architecture itself ? Concepts of balance, harmony and the unrestricted Chi (“life force”) energy are essential to health, and a deep connection to nature : How can they be expressed via design ? A native Chicago architect and long-time practitioner of such disciplines as Yoga, Zen and martial arts, Mark A. Miller actively focuses on creating such environments. Through both a slide presentation and a tour of his work, he will demonstrate how these principles can be incorporated into spaces that are humane, healing and harmonious.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago | Chicago, IL
Zen in Architecture
Eastern philosophy equates healthiness with the unrestricted flow of KI (chi) energy, or “life-force,” believing that most pain and disease in ourselves and in our environment are caused by a block in the pathways of this energy. If you have received a professional massage or acupuncture, or practiced yoga, meditation, or martial arts, you may have experienced this internal phenomenon of ki flow.
Architect/builder Mark A. Miller has spent more than 15 years practicing various contemplative disciplines including yoga, shotokan karate-do, and ai-ki-do (the way of a harmonious spirit). Initially, he was interested in gaining physical fitness and learning self-defense but soon discovered the spiritual side of these practices, finding new levels of compassion, contentment, joy and a profound connection to all life. This spiritual component is now an integral part of his work, and he continually studies how to create environments that offer the potential of similar experiences to their users. Join Mark Miller for a fascinating slide and video presentation illustrating how spiritual practice can influence architecture. Using historic buildings as well as his own work, he demonstrates the transcendent philosophy of ki awareness in practice and reveals how the art of architecture can be influenced by the principles and concepts of martial arts.