In anticipation of Emily Pilloton’s lecture here in the White Stag building last friday I watched her Ted Talk, which turned out to be very close to her presentation that night. Studio H is an organization started by Emily Pilloton after working in the design industry and becoming somewhat disillusioned with the work she was doing. After the group’s first project “failed”, as she put it, She and her partner, Matthew Miller an architect, were invited to design and build at a school in North Carolina. This school turned out to be part of the worst school district in the state of North Carolina and was in the process of being turned around by a superintendent brought in by the state named Dr. Chip Zullinger. After completing projects redesigning the computer labs and installing a learning landscape (see photos below) and designing the marketing for a campaign to put a computer and broadband connection in the homes of students who previously had no access to the internet at home, the pair decided to stay and try to implement their design build philosophy into a high school shop class.
Bertie County High School Computer lab – Image via Studio H Flickr Site – Click photo to view more
Windsor Elementary Learning Landscape – Image via Studio H Flickr Site – Click Image to see more
Connect Bertie – Image via Studio H Flickr Site – Click Image to see more
Like I mentioned, I had already watched the Ted Talk and while her talk followed mostly the same points, it was interesting to hear some of the more unscripted responses that you don’t get during a Ted Talk. Hearing about the everyday challenges of working with teenagers in a high school setting and the struggles they had made the final photos all the more impressive. Not to say that the projects weren’t impressive otherwise, but a lot of times during lectures like this you miss out on all the dirty, messy stuff and only see the end photo. It was also interesting to hear about the political forces that make or break projects like this, again, something that is 9/10 times glossed over in architectural lectures. Hearing Ms Pilloton speak honestly and directly about the challenges and rewards that go into Studio H’s work was refreshing and made for a very entertaining talk.
If you’d like to see her in action check out the following links:
Haha, my husband and I just had this debate a couple of days ago, about how exactly lucky we are that both of us like current interior planning trends. He came house from visiting a wonderful, albeit design-backward buddy, and the first thing he stated when he walked in the doorstep: