Studio H

Design. Build. Transform.
Visit the dedicated Studio H website and blog for the latest project news! >>

Studio H is a public high school “design/build” program based in Bertie County, NC, that sparks rural community development through real-world, built projects. By learning through a design sensibility, applied core subjects, and industry-relevant construction skills, students develop the creative capital, critical thinking, and citizenship necessary for their own success and for the future of their communities.

Over the course of one Studio H term, students earn high school and transferable college credit, and are offered part-time construction jobs to build the community project they have designed and prototyped. Studio H is a different kind of classroom. We design, build, and transform.

Learning Landscape

A educational playground system that can be built for free anywhere in the world.
Visit the dedicated Learning Landscape Network and game database >>.

The Learning Landscape is a playground framework for elementary learning that teaches core subjects, social skills, and leadership through game play and fun physical activity! The easy-to-build playspace and network of games for multiple subjects can be integrated into any school curriculum to improve student learning capacities.

Educational Environments

We design and build educational environments for public schools to engage students, excite new sensibilities, and efficiently meet functional requirements. We know from experience and our own metrics that improved physical surroundings can lead to improved performance, engagement, and collaboration for both students and teachers. Some examples of our environmental designs for schools include a pod-based scheme for safer (no rats nests of cords!) and more convivial technology-based learning spaces, streamlined desks for computer instruction, an open-circulation weight room for athletic teams, and more. Often our Educational Environments projects are done on limited budgets, using our own hands and local materials as budget-friendly resources.

Workshops and Consulting

For school districts, teachers, and nonprofits, we run “quickfire” workshops for rapid prototyping of design-based lesson plans, curricular development, and creativity training. Our workshops are “magical chaos,” often employing modules for creation such as “speed-date prototyping,” “blitzkrieg brainstorming,” and more. Workshops in the past have been led at the Maryland Institute College of Art (see recap and results here), North Carolina New Schools Project, and others. We also provide more focused consulting and curriculum development for project-based and design-based learning.

Design Revolution Road Show

Visit the dedicated Design Revolution Road Show blog for a recap of the whole trip >>

The Design Revolution Road Show was a traveling exhibition and lecture series bringing “design that empowers” to 35 high schools, universities, and cities across the nation in the Spring of 2010. The trek featured a 1972 Airstream trailer built out as an exhibition of 40 humanitarian design solutions that have been showcased in founder Emily Pilloton’s book Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People. The goal of the roadshow was to bring the evidence of and tools for design for social impact to the doorsteps of citizens, with the ultimate goal of enabling and empowering the next generation to apply their skills to the world’s most pressing problems.

Local Responses

Every now and then, a passionate group of volunteer designers, friends of Project H, and other creative activists in our network join forces to design quick, appropriate, beautiful solutions for local nonprofits and communities. These local interventions operate under the credo “we design with, not for,” using a democratic design process to co-create something great with a local partner. Initiatives have included Abject Object, a homeless-run craft enterprise called in Los Angeles; Safe Spaces, a more therapeutic interior design scheme built out for a foster care home in Austin; EduAction, engagement boards for classroom instruction in Seattle, Furniture for Rural Schools, a building blitz of desks and chairs for elementary schools outside of Mexico City; compost bins for an urban farm in San Francisco; storage solutions for a children’s hospital; kitchen tables for refugees recently relocated to the Bay Area; and many others.

A special thanks to our partners and affiliates on these local response projects:

+ Razon Social
+ Common Studio
+ Downtown Women’s Center
+ Helping Hand Home for Children
+ Alemany Farm
+ Morningside Academy