Emily Pilloton-Lam

Emily Pilloton-Lam is a designer, builder, educator, and Founder/Executive Director of the nonprofit Girls Garage (formerly Project H Design). Since the organization’s founding in 2008, Pilloton-Lam has taught and worked alongside youth ages 9-18 to co-design and build public architecture projects. With students in her Studio H high school program and Girls Garage after-school and summer programs, she has built a farmers market pavilion, a playhouse with girls whose mothers have experienced domestic violence, a school library, microhomes for a homeless housing agency, and a public parklet. She believes that by giving young girls and women the physical and personal tools needed to build the world they want to see, we can change the authorship of our built environments and upend power structures within our communities. Her work combines technical STEM and trade skills with mentorship and support for the whole girl that honors and amplifies girls’ identities. With an educational philosophy rooted in community organizing, hands-on work, and bravery, Pilloton-Lam also works with educators and schools to reinvent learning through personalized and often politically engaged project-based learning.

Pilloton-Lam holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California Berkeley, and a Master of Fine Arts 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 three books, "Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People," "Tell Them I Built This: Transforming Schools, Communities, and Lives With Design-Based Education," and "Girls Garage: How To Use Any Tool, Tackle Any Project, and Build The World You Want To See." Her work was the subject of the full-length documentary "If You Build It," about her Studio H students’ farmers market project in rural North Carolina. She has presented her work on the TED Stage, The Today Show, The Colbert Report, and to the Obama Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy at The White House.