Alex Gilliam
2010 Field Fellow
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A cheerleader of possibility, Alex Gilliam is the founder of Public Workshop, an organization dedicated to helping individuals, schools, and communities achieve great things through design. Public Workshop creates projects, tools and events that help people positively change the places they live, work and play.
Alex fundamentally believes that great design, empowerment, innovation, and having fun are not mutually exclusive. He has worked with such organizations as the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Rural Studio, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the University of Pennsylvania. Helping start the Charter High School For Architecture and Design in Philadelphia and numerous other architecture programs for youth, he is a national expert on K-12 design education.
He is particularly interested and skilled in engaging youth not only in positively changing their schools and communities, but using them as levers for stimulating civic innovation and broader social change. Much of this involves developing unique tools and processes that allow not just youth, but people of all ages to joyfully participate in the positive shaping of the places they live, work and learn. His work has been featured on NPR’s Studio 360 and in magazines such as Metropolis, ID, and the Architect’s Newspaper. Recently, he helped an architecture firm and its community partners create an innovative program in which a cadre of talented young adults help initiate positive change in Chicago neighborhoods through environmental assessment studies, community asset mapping and neighborhood service/design projects.
Alex focused on researching and cataloging the Museum's Architectural Toy Collection. During his fellowship he has been documenting some of his blog:
- Construction Toys Make Better Boys?
- The Merits Of Missing Pieces
- The Lone Ranger, Design Educator And Instigator?
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