Keynote Speaker: Thursday, May 3 | 4-5 p.m.
Emily Pilloton is a designer, builder, educator, and founder of the nonprofit Project H Design and its sister program, Girls Garage. Using architecture and design as a vehicle for social justice, she works alongside youth ages 9-18 to co-design and build public architecture projects that transform communities.
She has built a farmers market with high school students, a playhouse with and for the daughters of abused mothers, a school library designed by its own middle school students, and microhomes for a transitional housing agency. Her work seeks to change the authorship of our built environment and cultivate power in underestimated communities, specifically young girls, undocumented youth, and communities of color.
Emily holds a BA in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley, and an MFA s in Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a Lecturer in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California Berkeley, and is the author of two books, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, and Tell Them I Built This: Transforming Schools, Communities, and Lives With Design-Based Education.
Her work is the subject of the documentary If You Build It, has been featured on the TED Stage, The New York Times, and The Colbert Report, and awarded recognition by the Obama Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy, the SEED Design Award, and the Curry Stone Design Prize.