We know that the most successful projects are built on collaboration with our clients, team, and partners. Open and honest communication combined with a detailed site plan that accounts for all potential variables is key to success.

We treat every project we work on like we are building it for ourselves. It is personal and we take great pride in creating structures that improve communities and enrich lives. We believe West Virginia abounds with unexpected architectural treasures. A goal of the practice is to embrace the architectural heritage of the region and to celebrate the best of our past.

Our new office in downtown Morgantown is a reflection of our commitment to the community and the adaptive reuse of existing buildings. From the adorable black lab that greets you at the door to our state-of-the-art design technology, we have created a comfortable space ideal for collaboration and creativity.

Andy Beall, Planning & Zoning Administrator, Corporation of Shepherdstown

When collaborating with the Mills Group, one soon realizes they are dealing with a company built on integrity and managed by principles. The team listens and understands the client's end goals, provides feedback and creative options, communicates regularly their progress and completes projects on time and far beyond expectation.

Evan Hardesty, Managing Member, Black Oak Properties, LLC

I would strongly recommend Mills Group as architects for any job. Michael Mills and crew were not given much in the way of details when it came to our projects; however, they presented us with fully thought out, ready to build, beautiful, innovative designs. From traffic patterns, parking lot capacities, to water drainage, Mills Group considered factors often overlooked.

Preston County Commission

In our opinion, the Mills Group brings a wealth of expertise and professionalism that sets them apart from other architectural firms.

Tom Laurita, Residential Client

We needed help turning our vision into a reality. The Mills Group was able to take us through a collaborative process that generated a clear concept, and an outline for getting the job done. Our home was dated and now it exudes a warm welcoming feel.

Mark Nesselroad, CEO, Glenmark Holding LLC

Mills Group has developed into a highly reputable company for the Morgantown area. They have been an asset for Glenmark Holding LLC, as they designed the building that is currently our local office. Michael and his knowledgeable staff work diligently to deliver top-notch results with excellent customer service.

About

Mills Group’s technology pipeline utilizes some of the most cutting-edge devices and software on the market today. From the project kick-off to the finished product, our services add unmatched speed, accuracy, and hyper-realism.

Mills Group has a broad focus on architecture, assisting clients with residential, commercial, public, and interior designs. We work with our clients to create structures that improve their lives and their communities. Every project is developed with an emphasis on traditional design principles, vernacular design influences, and long-term sustainability.

When we design for commercial spaces, we always begin with an understanding of the practical usage of the space, the functional requirements of the space, cost limitations, any environmental circumstances, and the stakeholder's vision. Success is a result of combining all the factors into a stunning design.

Few things are more personal than the design of a home. Residential design needs to be a reflection of the homeowners needs, tastes and personality. Our team takes great care to "walk in our clients shoes" in order to understand project requirements before beginning the creative design phase.


Creating spaces that inspire educators to teach and empower students to reach their potential is always our goal. These buildings need to provide the modern technology required for educational institutions, while still preserving the sense of campus community.

Welcoming spaces that foster outstanding guest experiences is of the utmost importance to our hotel and resort clients. Our team works with hoteliers to create these spaces in the most practical and fiscally responsible manner possible.

Religious buildings are a source of inspiration and beauty to all communities. We work with congregations to create designs that reflect the values of the community and become an integral part of their spiritual family.

Mills Group does the research and considers contextual concerns to design community spaces that become landmark buildings that serve current and future generations.

Architecture

Our clients entrust us with creating the overarching plan that will foster a rich and engaging environment for people to live, work, and play. We approach the planning process of greenfield and infill sites with the desire to create a strong sense of place through a well-researched and detailed plan. Mills Group carefully considers the complex interaction of functional, economic, and social needs of our clients, while also providing the needs of the site's users.

We pride ourselves on extensive design due diligence to assess the existing constraints and opportunities, historic context, solar orientation, and transportation and circulation issues. We have experience with private developers and public agencies, so we understand greenfield and infill design challenges from both perspectives.

Proper planning and urban design will significantly enhance the real value of any proposed site development and facilitate compliance with zoning, infrastructure, and environmental regulations.

Planning

At Mills Group, we maintain a commitment to the rich cultural heritage of our region. Buildings tell the story of our past and each building provides a unique set of requirements and conditions to share that story. Sensitive and responsible preservation and restoration work must be responsive to the historic significance of the building.

Our team performs historical research and assesses existing conditions. We compile our findings into a comprehensive feasibility study and/or historic structures report for the owner. This document will begin the planning for the next phase of use for the building.

We strive to achieve a balance of the overall "Preservation Objectives" with those of the client's needs for the building's use. Our objective is always to maintain the building’s original historic character while incorporating provisions for life safety and accessibility requirements, indoor air quality, and energy conservation requirements.


The documentation and assessment of structures is an essential element for Mills Group. We provide conceptual design services that produce alternatives for the building's reuse, detailing what work will be necessary, its effect on the environment, and local and state regulations, as well as an estimation of costs associated with the project. Often, as a part of structural documentation, Mills Group utilizes its research to complete National Register of Historic Places nominations for significant structures which provide opportunities for financial support that will often help fund the next phases of the building's preservation and restoration.

                                                                                      Mills Group approaches any project that requires interpretation in a manner of maintaining a balance between financial availability, optimizing the visitor experience, and completing the goals and requirements of the client. We have a qualified staff with experience in determining the physical and operational needs of a facility, as well as utilizing the methods that best sustain archival collections.


We develop facility maintenance plans that prescribe routine work necessary to sustain a structure given its historic materials and components. With proper facilities maintenance programs, small problems do not have to evolve into big or even irreversible ones.

Preservation

In our architectural designs, sustainability is one of the first considerations. Whether it is constructing a new home maximizing solar exposure or adaptively reusing an old building and its materials, we strive to emphasize long-term occupancy, use of local materials and labor, incorporating green products when feasible, and working with the topography, rather than against it.

Mills Group designs new structures, but we also specialize in the renovation and adaptive reuse of existing structures, striving to emphasize their cultural, historical, and environmental contexts. Our new offices in Morgantown are a wonderful example of an adaptive reuse project that compliments our community.

Sustainability

Mills Group designs for individual families and multi-story complexes for residential development. We believe in creating designs that reflect the needs and personality of the homeowner and add value to the community. We closely collaborate with our clients to develop a design that meets their vision and budget, while exceeding their expectations.

Residential

Mills Group takes a strategic approach to interior architecture, aimed at maximizing available working and living space within a building. Our goal is to not just design a space that reflects individual style but to produce an environment that is appropriate, functional, and usable for every unique occupant.

Our integrated interior architecture services, spanning the needs of commercial, public, and residential clients, have been employed throughout municipal government, health care, higher education, and corporate business facilities.

Interiors

One of our strongest technology tools is our Virtual Reality (VR) headset which brings our designs into fully-realized virtual environments for our clients. This technology creates interactive guided tours for clients to be immersed in a project and to view the site from unlimited perspectives.

The Virtual Reality capability also allows for an experimental design and review process and a deeper insight into the project details in real time. During the conceptual phase, our designers can enter the virtual space to prove or disprove concepts early on and in truly integrated ways. Checking dimensions, sight lines and testing the overall feel of space in first person are not possible without the help of VR.

Another client benefit of our Virtual Reality workflow is that it is optimized for web use which allows our teammates and clients to collaborate from anywhere. The web based software allows clients without VR headsets to still have the ability to join us in a virtual space to see their project take shape right before their eyes.

Virtual Reality

The integration of point cloud scanning is one of the most important and game-changing additions to our ever-evolving technology toolkit. This scanning process works by sending out and then collecting and analyzing a large set of data points within a given coordinate system, also known as a ”point cloud.” These data points gather details on the location being scanned that pertain to distance, size, shape, and color and then return that information back to the scanner. After canvasing an entire location of interior and/or exterior spaces, the scanner then registers a highly accurate composite point cloud model which is used by our architects to verify existing structures as well as create trustworthy models for new designs.

In addition to the incredible sub-centimeter accuracy of the scanning data, it also gathers 360° HD imagery that can be used to give our clients fully-immersive walkthroughs of their space. These images can also be integrated into our Virtual Reality interface for an even greater effect.

Further benefits to leveraging this technology include measuring and analyzing unreachable areas, utilizing the thermal camera to understand heat transmission or reveal insulation vulnerabilities, and to present our designs in visually rich and dynamic ways.

3D Scanning

Mills Group specializes in hand-crafted videos and project-related graphic packages that create a complete visual experience for our clients. Custom voice-over and narration, info-graphics, special effects, and soundtracking are all woven together in a cohesive package that can help illustrate the story behind the project and create a believable vision of what could be. Our video capabilities include utilizing both DSLR cameras (digital single-lens reflex) and GoPros to capture HD imagery and silky smooth video at ultra-high resolutions.

Our animation workflow starts with our accurate 3D models being integrated into our motion software. The software allows us to add a realistic atmosphere through the use of landscape plants, water effects, sunlight and weather, and moving people and traffic among other entourage assets. We create a visual storyline through scene scripting and wireframes to direct our in-program cameras to track. After perfecting the story, recording our scenes, and stitching the clips together seamlessly, we then overlay special effects, music, and narration to create a complete experience for our clients.

Animation & Video

Our 360° imagery and spherical capture is a great tool for helping our designers and clients with understanding space from almost any perspective. We can create these by capturing them from existing locations through our point cloud scanner or from our 3D modeled designs through our animation software. By combining several location captures, we are able to create virtual tours that help illustrate linear progressions through sites as you would see them in real life.

Some of our most impactful client meetings involve creating hybridized tours that contain spherical images of both existing conditions and modeled conceptual designs. These sessions allow for a quick recall of what the space feels like currently and then immediately highlights how the space can feel from the exact same location under the exact same conditions with our proposed design.

360° Imagery

A difficulty that we often face is adhering to strict federal and state guidelines that dictate responsible preservation, life safety, and sound architectural practices. These guidelines can be very complex and involved without the help of a knowledgeable advisor. Our team of experts are able to transform the complexity of these practices into functioning, intuitive, and user-friendly formats.

Our clients can easily navigate these guidelines using our hand-crafted, interactive PDF documents that guide users step-by-step through each phase. Whether it be creating linear, choice-based pathways or labyrinthine, multi-branching procedures, we transform the complicated into the concise.

Documents such as our Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Interactive Roadmap guide the user to ensure that no important steps are missed on the way. This particular document highlights the stages involved in determining whether a project is eligible to receive tax credits and then directs users through the application process. The Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Interactive Roadmap uses a straightforward, single-choice interface and a clickable flow chart that can lead users to any step in the progression.

Interactivity

Through the Remote Pilot Certification of Ryan McClain, the Director of Creative Planning and Design, Mills Group is able to provide fully-fledged drone services to our residential and commercial clients.

These drone missions or "sUAS" (small unmanned aircraft systems) will allow our entire firm to benefit from internally collected aerial photography and video as well as photogrammetry, which is the technology of obtaining reliable and accurate information about physical objects in the environment through the process of recording, measuring, and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant imagery and other phenomena.

Data distilled from our software will allow us to harness important, yet difficult to gather, site information like terrain slopes, cut/fill volumes, drainage elevations, roof profiles, site areas, hardscape distances, turf health, plant counts, and many other elements. In addition, we can now also use all the imagery and video we collect for enhanced marketing efforts and project graphics.

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