Building Footprints

Mental health patients and their loved ones may rarely think about the bricks and mortar in the facilities where care is provided, but the critical nature of that building to the quality of care provided is a prime concern to Wilmington architect LAURA MILLER.

 

A principal with LS3P, Miller and her team have designed several such facilities in several states.

 

“In a geriatric unit, the way nurses interact with patients is different from the interaction in a child and adolescent unit,” Miller says. “We’ve worked with the CEO, doctors, and care providers to learn their best model for interacting with the patients and providing treatment.”

 

Miller’s other work is evident around the county in the Wilmington Convention Center, Wilmington Police Department headquarters, Cape Fear Community College’s Union Station, and the Live Oak Bank campus to name a few.

 

“One of the great things about being in Wilmington is that it’s a smaller market so we get to have a broad range of project types. In larger markets, it’s more common to specialize because there’s such a wealth of projects,” she says, adding that she enjoys working on schools because her mother was a teacher.

 

“Live Oak Bank is such as great group, so it was really fun,” Miller says. “The mental health projects are really great because the impact they have on their communities is tremendous. Even though I’m just designing bricks and mortar, it really makes an impact.”

 

Three weeks after graduating from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University in 2000, Miller joined the firm when it was still Boney Architects. She became a principal, along with Charles, Chris, and Paul Boney in 2010.

 

The company now has six locations in North and South Carolina employing architects, specification writers, interior designers, and other talents.

 

“Depending on the scale, a project might have three or ten others involved. We also work with engineering consultants to get the whole project to come together,” Miller says.

 

Their involvement is typically from the inception of an idea, talking through the client’s vision for the project.

 

“We work from there until the last piece of steel is raised, and they open the door,” she says.

 

Miller says she enjoys the feeling of the Wilmington office.

 

“We have all the benefits of having a big firm because we have the resources of all six offices, but Wilmington has the family feeling we had as Boney, so we get the best of both worlds,” she says.

 

With improvements in the economy, the firm also is seeing a return of residential clients.

 

“We are doing quite a few now, and that’s fun to get back into that,” she notes.

 

Outside of the office, Miller and her husband and two children regularly volunteer for Meals on Wheels and run in fundraiser 5K runs.

 

“My husband and I try to instill in them the value of volunteering,” Miller says about their children.

 

She is also an active advocate for the industry as a member of the AIA Wilmington Executive Committee and the group’s former president. She and other members lobbied hard to keep the historic preservation tax credits that state lawmakers ultimately cut from the budget.

 

“Obviously there are a lot of significant structures in North Carolina, and anything that encourages people to renovate and keep those is beneficial,” Miller says. “The loss of that credit — we will feel effects immediately. There are projects that just stopped when that credit went away.

 

To view more of photographer Chris Brehmer's work, go to chrisbrehmerphotography.com.