60 DIGS.NET
| 3.11.2022
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P R O F I L E | M I L L E R H U L L
HE WORLD'S FIRST residential remodel to earn Living Building
Challenge certification, based on the performance cate-
gories of Place, Water, Energy, Health and Happiness,
Materials, Equity, and Beauty, Loom House is the embod-
iment of impact design. Commanding a bluff overlooking
picturesque Puget Sound, and shrouded in taut, 200-foot-tall
spruces, the house keeps vigilant watch of the water. The view
from here would be unmatched were it not for the house itself,
which, given a resilient, blue-ribbon retrofit by award-winning
firm The Miller Hull Partnership, rivals its luminous outlook.
Designed in 1968 by late architect Hal Moldstad, whose resi-
dential designs (many also on Bainbridge Island) include homes
for Bill Gates, was well-loved but a bit too encased in amber
for its current occupants. Inhabited by only two families over
its long life, the house had never been updated prior to Miller
Hull's intervention and had, like many mid-century residences
in similar straits, fallen victim to some of the more unfortunate
aesthetic hallmarks of its era. In this case, seemingly as many
bunk beds as built-ins, past-its-prime Formica, and a labyrinth
of rooms that choked the space of a modern feel and flow.
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