Browsing All Posts filed under »Our Work«

Design-Building A Hang-Out Space + Playable Sports Field Seating With Students + Teachers.

June 13, 2016

Our Work

Client The Western School For Science And Technology Location Phoenix, AZ Year 2016 A few years ago when we first started working with the great folks at the Western School For Science And Technology (WSST) in Phoenix, AZ, there was great interest in design-building a path to connect the middle-high school with its sister elementary school that is […]

Helping A Middle-High School Build A STEM Curriculum + Maker Culture Through Play.

January 24, 2016

Our Work

Client The Western School For Science And Technology Location Phoenix, AZ Year 2015 to present What began as a project to put our client’s–The Western School of Science and Technology–middle/high school’s students at the forefront of designing and building outdoor amenities–a path and seating–to physically connect the new building with its sister school, quickly grew into something much […]

Co-Creating Playable Street Furniture To Bring Play + Exercise To The Sidewalk.

December 24, 2015

Our Work

Client Community Design Collaborative and Get Healthy Philly Location Philadelphia Year 2015 In the summer of 2015, working with our clients The Community Design Collaborative and Get Healthy Philly, through the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we led a participatory design-build process exploring what happens when play and exercise spill beyond a playground, becoming part of the sidewalk, […]

Transforming A Formerly Vacant Lot With Youth + Community-Built Play.

September 30, 2015

Our Work

Client People’s Emergency Center, Community Design Collaborative and Get Healthy Philly Location Philadelphia, PA Year 2015 What began in November 2014 as creative intervention to put an end to the drug use and defecation that was occurring daily on a vacant lot on Lancaster Avenue has evolved into an ever-growing mini-park and playground for young and […]

Design-Building Rolling Treehouses With Students + Teachers In A Middle-School Cafeteria.

August 13, 2015

Our Work

Client Albemarle County Public Schools, Walton Middle School Location Charlottesville, VA Year 2015 If you don’t know about the great things happening in Albemarle County Schools in Virginia, you should. Superintendent Pam Moran, her compatriot Ira Socol and the many great teachers and administrators that make up the system are doing something pretty special. With not a lot […]

Custom All-Weather Build-It! Disks For Boston’s Play Day 2015 At Lawn On D.

July 10, 2015

Our Work

Client Playscapes and Industria Creative Location Boston Year 2015 Since first creating our cardboard Build-It! Disks in 2011, we have consistently gotten requests to develop an all-weather version. Until now we’ve held off for two reasons: they are pretty expensive and we’ve had some material concerns. Happily, our friends at Playscapes and Chris Wangro were working with […]

A Bus Stop Super-Bench Prototype Design-Built By Michigan Teens.

June 20, 2015

Our Work

Client Flint Public Art Project Location Flint, MI Year 2015 In June we had the privilege of working once again with our friends at Flint Genesee Job Corps on developing a prototype bus stop bench through one of our favorite clients, Flint Public Art Project. Over the course of eight days we worked with twenty of Rejean Houle‘s […]

Design-Building Lawn Chairs With Neighbors To Build Community At Drexel.

May 16, 2015

Our Work

Client Drexel University Location Philadelphia Year 2015 The staff at Drexel University‘s new Dornsife Community Center is diligently building relationships, community and programming around the facility. To accelerate this process while adding amenities to the significant lawn surrounding the Center, Drexel hired Public Workshop to create a participatory design-build workshop for Dornsife staff, stakeholders and neighbors. We are […]

The Building Hero Project, Our Young Adult Design Leadership + Entrepreneurship Program.

March 4, 2015

Our Work

GREAT PRODUCTS BY YOUNG BUILDING HEROES THAT GROW AND SUPPORT EVEN MORE. The Building Hero Project is Public Workshop’s young adult community design leadership and entrepreneurship program. The Building Heroes are a growing army of empowered and skilled young adult leaders and change agents who want to make our neighborhoods and Philadelphia in general, better […]

A Teen Design-Built Community Message Board + Tools To Strengthen Their Neighborhood Work.

October 24, 2014

Our Work

Client People’s Emergency Center Location Philadelphia Year 2014 With the support of Cognizant and ArtPlace through the Department of Making + Doing, Public Workshop worked with seven teens from our client, People’s Emergency Center (PEC) in 2014 to co-design solutions that would make their work as ‘Community Connectors’ more effective. Through a quick design research process, they decided that […]

A Pop-Up Skate Park + Playspace Created By Camden Teens Leads To Much More.

October 21, 2014

Our Work

Client Coopers Ferry Partnership Location Camden, NJ Year 2014 This summer, Coopers Ferry Partnership hired us to work with local youth and community members to create a series of pop-up places for skating, play and building in Camden, NJ. The project has been a great success and we are excited to work with Coopers Ferry, the Camden Building […]

Youth Design-Build Benches For Businesses To Strengthen A Retail Corridor.

August 15, 2014

Our Work

Client North 5th Street Revitalization Project Location Philadelphia Year 2014 Can community benches that are design-built by neighborhood youth in partnership with local businesses strengthen a business corridor? Public Workshop worked with our client, The North 5th Street Revitalization Project, and local youth through Education Works to design-build four temporary, prototype benches with four businesses along North 5th Street. […]

We Empowered 80 People To Build Something Fantastic + Transform A Space In Under 2 Hrs.

July 22, 2014

Our Work

How can we empower citizens to re-imagine the public spaces around them? Late this spring we were hired by the Van Alen Institute to create a building event that would empower people to change a place and stimulate a rich conversation around DIY public space. Although torrential rain forced us to move the event inside, […]

9th Grade Ladies Design-Built These Rolling Hangout Pods To Improve Their School.

July 22, 2014

Our Work

At 2:35 pm on a Wednesday in May, a series of amazing things happened. As school wrapped up for the day, with little fanfare a team of ninth grade teenage women started using power tools to assemble two massive rolling hangout pods in their school’s cafe. They spent the last six months designing and fabricating […]

An Update On Our Citizen Science Program Project With Drexel University.

March 4, 2014

News, Our Work

‘If my friends or family walked past our (green water infrastructure) site with me, they got excited and wanted to help’-Josiah, 17. Last week we had a great download with all of the citizen scientists who participated in the beta version of the citizen science program that we are helping scientists at Drexel develop. This […]

100’s Activate + Learn About A Hidden Space By Building 400 Yrs Of History W/Cardboard.

March 4, 2014

Our Work

What happens when you challenge people to build 400 years of history–forgotten bridges, forts, factories, etc.–along the Schuylkill River out of cardboard in just two days in a largely unknown public park along the River? You get local fisherman, high school students, grandmothers, designers, local community members, college students, skateboarders, and families from across Philadelphia […]

We Are Making It Easier, Even Joyous To Find Essential Services In Philadelphia’s City Hall.

February 26, 2014

News, Our Work

How can government be considered ‘open’ or function effectively if even the most navigationally astute visitors to Philadelphia’s City Hall can’t find the most basic services? Public Workshop is currently working with the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics to make City Hall more inviting and accessible. The project entails rethinking and prototyping a […]

An Adventure Playspace Designed + Built By Philly Youth, The USGBC Greenbuild Legacy Project.

November 15, 2013

Our Work

Last spring we were ecstatic to win the Greenbuild Legacy Project grant with our partners at Smith Memorial Playground from the Delaware Valley Green Building Council to work with youth in Philly to design and build an adventure play space at Smith. Six months later with many thousands of people starting to stream into Philadelphia for Greenbuild, […]

Teens Activating Vacant Lots By Design-Building Places For Play, Exercise + Community.

November 12, 2013

Our Work

Last year we had the great pleasure of working with the ArtPlace funded Flint Public Art Project and some great teens from Flint-Genesee Job Corps to design and build temporary bus stop improvements. Needless to say, when the opportunity arose to work with them again this year and do another Tiny WPA project, we leapt at the […]

Tiny WPA Update: Teens Redesigning/Rebuilding Classrooms, Vacant Lots, + Playgrounds, Oh My!

September 8, 2013

Our Work

Four Tiny WPA Community Improvement Projects Design-Built By 100’s Of Teens In Three Cities In 45 Days, More Coming! Goodness it’s been a mighty busy summer. Last year we did four Tiny WPA projects in three months, this year have done that same number of projects in half the time and needless to say there has […]