Browsing All Posts filed under »Our Work«

Project:#teendesignheroes Gather Data + Stories To Improve The Design Of Their Neighborhood.

August 6, 2011

News, Our Work

Young adults dressed in lab coats using over-sized thermometers to find heat islands in their neighborhoods? A two-foot nose, sculpted to make the process of measuring air quality more visible to community members? These are but two of many projects undertaken last year by Shadelab, a unique, community design leadership program in which talented young Chicago adults gather […]

Play A Game To Better Understand Your Site- By Joseph, One Of Our #teendesignheroes.

July 9, 2011

Our Work

Who’s seen the Eiffel tower? At least in pictures? Most of us have. However, the people who haven’t don’t know the feeling of the wind breezing. Or the sounds of the car and actually smell the steel. So hearing about Taliesin and looking at photos is completely different from standing on the tallest hill and […]

Looking Beyond The Map + The Importance Of Failure By Diana, A #teendesignheroes.

July 7, 2011

Our Work, People

Coming to Taliesin was scary for the fact that I felt a bit intimidated by the rest of the students. I knew for a fact that they had more work experience than I in the technical aspects of design, where I was doing a wretched job at figuring it out. But In the end it […]

Now I Believe I Will Reach My Dream- Reflections By Audrey,One Of Our #teendesignheroes.

July 6, 2011

Our Work

This was our awesome team of design super heroes, all who have recently graduated from high school…except for our family baby, Diana…and we all worked tremendously hard to be a part of this journey through the Newhouse Competition. From that competition, we all won awards that showed the amount of endless work we put into our […]

Images From Our #teendesignheroes Workshop At Taliesin In Rural Wisconsin.

July 6, 2011

Our Work

Six super talented Chicago Public School students from diverse backgrounds. Two superstar Teaching Fellows. A rich architectural legacy that exudes experimentation and ‘doing’. Seven days and seventeen hours of relentless testing, building, experimentation, failure and play- challenging all assumptions about how learning and design occur. It’s a summer design camp on steroids- a ‘doing’ camp […]

Can #teendesignheroes Be Creative Role Models For Adults + Subversive Agents Of Change?

July 4, 2011

Our Work, Writing

I woke up with Michael Jackson blaring in my head this morning, a rare occurrence on a weekend morning that I can only attribute to a memorable moment on the second to last day of our design-build workshop and learning lab with my #teendesignheroes. Feverishly design-building our telephone booth porch with only a few hours […]

The Power + Value Of Teamwork- By Jeisson, One Of Our #teendesignheroes.

July 1, 2011

Our Work, People

It is a difficult task finding sparks between varying personalities and wildly different skill sets, particularly for someone trying to allow peaceful coexistence among a static group and with a set goal that demands positive interactions and successful chemistry. For our team, with Alex and Katie being the ones in charge of setting everyone up […]

Check Out What Our Chicago #teendesignheroes Are Building + Learning In Rural Wisconsin.

June 28, 2011

News, Our Work

Spending sixteen to eighteen hours a day building things in rural Wisconsin with my #teendesignheroes from the Chicago Public School system leaves little time to share all of the amazing things that are happening with the outside world. This design-build workshop for teens is one of my most important laboratories for testing the limits of […]

The Design Process Flipped Backwards- By Jeisson, One Of Our #teendesignheroes.

June 27, 2011

Our Work

Prepare yourself to build, tear down, build, tear down, and build again, so that finally, you can have what you may call your first draft. Sound tough? You’re telling me! Thankfully, while it is challenging, it’s also one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. During our third day at Taliesin, we were happily joined […]

Only 5 Days Until Our Teen-Led Design Lab At Taliesin: Redefining Learning + Possibility!

June 19, 2011

News, Our Work

Only five days until our favorite week of the year! Taliesin was Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural playground. An ever evolving place, he and his apprentices were constantly experimenting with the structure, space and building materials of existing buildings on the property- adjusting, tearing things down and starting anew. They did this to better meet the […]

News:Public Workshop + Partners Awarded NEA Grant To Create Innovative Youth Design Prog.

May 15, 2011

News, Our Work

We couldn’t be more pleased to announce that the National Endowment For The Arts recently awarded Public Workshop, in partnership with openhousenewyork and DreamYard, a grant to create an innovative youth-led community design leadership program in the Bronx. openhousenewyork is an organization that unlocks New York City’s architecture, infrastructure and hidden spaces in all five […]

News:Public Workshop To Work On Austin Master Plan W/Michael Van Valkenburgh Assoc.

May 15, 2011

News, Our Work

Lady Bird Lake, Town Lake, or the Colorado River? It doesn’t really matter which name you choose to call the large swath of water that cuts through Downtown Austin, it remains one the natural features that makes Austin a particularly great place to live. Indeed, over the years it has become one the the quintessential […]

Prototyping Adventure Courses + A Shade Structure In Four Hours At UCDavis, Oh My!

April 21, 2011

Events, Our Work

When is a tree not a tree? When you give a bunch of landscape architecture students and teachers the task of making a tree from scrap pieces of 1″ x 2″. In this case a tree becomes a lean-to, a passage way, a vertical lattice, the beginnings of an innovative sub-structure, a shed and goodness […]

In The Meantime, Here Are A Lot Of Awesome Pictures + The Merits Of Making Design Public.

March 24, 2011

Our Work

Originally, I had hoped to write a little bit each day about the design and intention behind each intuitive building exercise, and the many structures that you I’m sure you have now seen. In short, the resulting structures, although gorgeous, are not about form. Behind each structure is an exercise that is designed to test […]

Workshop #1: The Merits Of Absurdly Large, Impossible Challenges.

March 22, 2011

Our Work

I particularly relish giving people, especially youth, ridiculously hard challenges that directly engage them in finding and solving some of the most pressing design problems in their everyday lives. Whether they are redesigning and rebuilding their own physically and emotionally decrepit K-12 schools; making high and low tech sensors to gather the environmental data, and […]

Come Help Redefine Possibility! Your Opportunity To Help Explore + Build March 20-24th.

March 18, 2011

Events, Our Work

A Week Of Building Experiments And Adventures Interested in helping test the limits of learning, design and collaboration while making gorgeous structures in a fantastic space? Starting this Sunday I will be leading six days of fantastic building experiments at the National Building Museum and I would love for you, and your friends to come […]

National Building Museum Fellowship Update #6: Yeah,I Couldn’t Wait Any Longer. Some Images.

March 10, 2011

Our Work

Okay, so my intuitive building and making-as-a-tool-for-dialogue experiments aren’t officially going to happen until the week of March 21st. However, when my newly fabricated, never before tested disks happened to arrive on the same day I was visiting the National Building Museum for a couple of days last week, could you blame me for not […]

Project:The Citizen Designer Workshop, Integrating Youth + Community In Design Practice.

March 4, 2011

Our Work

Project: The Citizen Designer Workshop-Integrating Youth + Community Into Design Practice Location: New York, NY Project Director: Alex Gilliam for the Hester Street Collaborative Year: 2005-2006 ‘It didn’t work, nothing worked.’ In 2006, I arrived to work at Hester Street Collaborative on a Monday morning to find my talented teenage interns utterly despondent. The previous […]

Project: How Healthy Is Your Neighborhood? Its Schools, Housing, Streets & Public Spaces?

January 18, 2011

Our Work

Project: Shadelab Location: Chicago Project Director: Alex Gilliam and Catherine Baker of Landon Bone Baker Architects Year: Spring 2010 to Present Young adults dressed in lab coats using oversized thermometers to find heat islands in their neighborhoods? Homemade Arduino sensors crafted to measure air quality in and around affordable housing? A two foot nose, sculpted […]

Project: Build A Six Foot Long Chocolate Cake Master Plan, Change A Place.

November 10, 2010

Our Work

Imagine thirty people standing on the edge of a street in Austin, Texas intently building a six foot long chocolate cake master plan of a largely unknown creek corridor hidden in the midst of their Downtown. Eight of the builders were supposed to be there, the rest, baffled AND excited by the scene before them, […]