I am really excited to be able to invite you to the Children Changing Cities panel this Saturday morning (6/19) at 9.30 at the Association for Community Design Conference (here) in Berkeley, California. The panel brings together a compelling collection of thinkers and doers who are redefining how we engage youth in making our cities, [...]
February 11, 2010
The Charter High School for Architecture and Design (CHAD) in Philadelphia was opened in 1999 with the goal of using architecture and design to facilitate more effective learning of traditional subjects, and to encourage a greater awareness of good design and the built environment. In his capacity as the Director of Design, Alex Gilliam (Director of Public Workshop) assembled the Department, wrote the Design Department Curriculum, served as lead Department Chair for the school and designed projects, and events that set up a general framework for school’s multidisciplinary learning approach. These projects and events focused on learning through doing, designing and making.
February 11, 2010
Can design project based around Alfred Hitchcock's classic, 'The Birds' lead to tremendous academic achievement from underperforming children? Can designing for a red breasted sapsucker and a frazzled couple from Bodega Bay lead to great things?
Event: Chicago K-12 Design Educator Potluck Presentation: You Can Change Your City by Alex Gilliam of Public Workshop Date: Thursday February 4th from 6.30-8.00 pm-ish Location: Landon Bone Baker Architects, 734 N Milwaukee Ave. Here’s why you shouldn’t miss it: Normally Public Workshop wouldn’t trumpet giving a presentation at a relatively informal event but ladies and gents, [...]
From Public Workshop’s Project Archives: Project: The Sunshine School, The Movie! Location:Newbern, AL Project Director: Alex Gilliam Year: 2004 Yep, the export quality from this movie I made many, many years ago leaves a lot to be desired but it does a knock up job conveying the incredible spirit of the project and the students [...]
Of the many wonderful things I have seen thus far in Chicago, one of my favorites is the work that Mejay Gula, Kelly Van Eaton and Charlie Vinz, are doing with Chicago high school students through the After School Matters (here) program. Last fall Mejay and Charlie worked with their students to design and build [...]
From Public Workshop’s Project Archives: Project: The Sunshine School Location:Newbern, AL Project Director: Alex Gilliam Year: 2004 ʻOur school was really in a mess. And since it was down, everyone here was down because it was just a disaster.ʼ Many of the schools in rural Alabama are in an incredible state of physical and emotional disrepair because they have [...]
Project: What’s Poppin’ On Fulton Street? Redesigning The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s City Of Neighborhoods Program. Location: New York, NY Project Directors: Alex Gilliam and Damon Rich of the Center For Urban Pedagogy Year: 2007 Not to worry, more information is on the way. Stay tuned!
Project: Rebranding The Sunshine School Location:Newbern, AL Project Director: Alex Gilliam Year: 2004 Not to worry, more information is on the way. Stay tuned!
On Tuesday October 20th at 7.00 pm , Public Workshop will be presenting at the Building A Healthier Austin symposium. The organizers have done a great job of assembling a diverse cast of characters involved in health care, transportation, housing, planning, etc. for what will be a great and inspiring conversation. The focus will be [...]
Project: Creating The Architecture Program At The Pennsylvania Governor’s School For The Arts Location:Erie, PA Project Director: Alex Gilliam Year: 2001-2001 Not to worry, more information is on the way. Stay tuned!
Project: Redesigning ‘Creative Problem Solving’ For Growth And Greater Student Engagement Location:Austin, TX Project Director: Alex Gilliam for Larry Speck at the University of Texas Year: 2008-2010 Not to worry, more information is on the way. Stay tuned!
October 8, 2009
Project: Project:Teens Redesigning A Public Plaza At The University Of Pennsylvania- Teaching At The University Of Pennsylvania Location:Philadelphia, PA Project Director: Alex Gilliam and Alexandra Schmidt Ulrich Year: 2007 Not to worry, more information is on the way. Stay tuned!
We’re almost there ladies and gents. The front page still has a few tweaks and the individual blog post pages need some serious reprogramming but the Public Workshop redesign is almost complete. A little re-framing here, a couple of pieces of sheet rock there, a liberal dabbling of caulk and we’ll be ready to go. [...]
September 28, 2009
73 designers and children designing, learning and building intently together. 3 fantastic Newhouse/ Taliesin Fellows helping facilitate. Fabulous collaboration, support and organizing by Krisann Rehbein, Raul, Jean and the Chicago Architecture Foundation. 9 structures in three hours. A ridiculous amount of pine, 4000 zip ties and sandwiches. 1 fantastic Grant Park. And 1 Intuitive Building [...]
I’m an individual coming alone, what should you bring? Twist the arm of at least one friend, neighbor or random person on the street. A chair for yourself- fancy or folding optional. A keen eye for possibility . A brunch treat/beverage of your choosing and the necessary utensils/tools for consuming said offering. Your best [...]
How Can You Change Your City? How can you Make Austin Weirder? What types of new tools exist or need to be created to better enable people to participate in the making of a city’s future? Sixty-five Austinites- students, designers, educators, policy makers, gardeners and activists- lingered for more than three hours at Space 12 [...]
The KIPP Austin Alumni Program and Public Workshop partner to present two incredible films about cities by teenagers and designers from the Center For Urban Pedagogy (CUP) on August 19th at 7 pm. This summer teenagers from the KIPP Austin Alumni program have been working on a film series, generously hosted by Space12 (www.space12.org) at [...]
Well, I can’t honestly say that the Millenium Park portion of that statement is a sure thing but the rest of it is now settled. On the weekend of September 19-20 I will be designing/leading two participatory building/prototyping events for the Chicago Architectural Foundation . I am really pleased that this is going to happen. [...]
July 8, 2009
This is the second year that Public Workshop has developed a unique week-long summer workshop at Taliesin (East) for six high school students from the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s excellent Newhouse Program (run by the likewise excellent Krisann Rehbein) and I quite frankly couldn’t be more excited by the results. Frankly, we (the students, Krisann, the [...]
June 18, 2010
imagining, teaching