Maya Bird-Murphy (born 1992), is an American architect, and educator.[1][2] She is the Founder and Executive Director of Mobile Makers Chicago, a nonprofit that focuses on making design accessible to underrepresented communities.[3] She has received awards and recognition from both AIA and AIGA.[4][5][6]

Education

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Maya Bird-Murphy was born in 1992 in Chicago, and grew up in Oak Park, a village near Chicago, Illinois. She attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, graduating in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture.[7][1][8] She completed a Masters in Architecture at Boston Architectural College (BAC), graduating in 2017.[7] Her graduate school thesis was Mobile Makers, a project centered on providing low-cost skill-building workshops and educational programming for low-income children ages 8–18.[1][2]

Career

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Maya launched Mobile Makers Chicago as a nonprofit organization in September 2017 right before she graduated.[1] She retrofitted a UPS truck to be a portable studio space which hosts mobile workshops mostly on the South and West sides of Chicago.[2] The goal of Mobile Makers is to build community engagement and to provide young people with the tools and skills they might need in their future.[9][1]

In June 2022, Mobile Makers was the recipient of the Bulls NBA 75th Anniversary Legacy Project, which funded the permanent space for Mobile Makers in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.[10][1] Mobile Makers Chicago received the 2022 Graham Foundation Grant.[11]

Since the conception of Mobile Makers Chicago, Bird-Murphy has simultaneously worked at a variety of other institutions and organizations. She has worked as Architecture Adventure Program Coordinator at the Oak Park Education Foundation (OPEF) and is a part-time faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[12][8]

Awards and honors

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Maya has received the following awards:

In 2018, she was named as an AIGA Design + Diversity Conference National Fellow.[5] The same year, she was featured in The American Institute of Architects' (AIA) Emerging Professionals Exhibition 2018 for Mobile Makers.[6] She was one of the ten who received the 2018 Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE (Architect Registration Examination) Scholarship from AIA.[17]

She was named in Newcity Magazine's 2022 list of fifty people who have shaped design in Chicago.[18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Ponchione. (2022). BIG THINKER: Maya Bird-Murphy makes design accessible to young people. Hospitality Design, 44(5), 75.
  2. ^ a b c Cohen. (2022). Rare bird - [Mobile Makers Chicago : Maya Bird-Murphy]. Interior Design, 93(3), 164.
  3. ^ "mobile makers". mobile makers. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  4. ^ a b "2020 HONOR AWARDS". AIA Illinois. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  5. ^ a b "Emerging Voices: Design + Diversity Conference Fellows". AIGA EMERGE. 2018-09-10. Retrieved 2022-11-28.
  6. ^ a b "Emerging Professionals Exhibit 2018: The Power of Design - AIA". www.aia.org. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  7. ^ a b "Maya Bird-Murphy and the Chicago Mobile Makers deepen their roots in community change with the opening of their new headquarters". Archinect. Retrieved 2022-11-28.
  8. ^ a b "mbird-". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  9. ^ "Theaster Gates' Experimental Design Lab hopes to amplify emerging artists, designer's work to develop a nexus of creative energy on the South Side". Chicago Tribune. 10 August 2022. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  10. ^ "Bulls Unveil NBA 75th Anniversary Legacy Project". www.nba.com. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  11. ^ "Graham Foundation > Grantees > Mobile Makers Chicago". www.grahamfoundation.org. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  12. ^ "Maya Bird-Murphy". Oak Park Education Foundation. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  13. ^ "BAC Alumni Awards". the-bac.edu. Retrieved 2022-11-28.
  14. ^ CAP (2021-06-30). "Introducing our 2021 Alumni Award Winners!". College of Architecture and Planning. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  15. ^ "Hublot Design Prize". Hublot. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  16. ^ "Dorchester Industries". Prada Group. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  17. ^ Malloy, Amanda (2018-09-25). "Architects Foundation Announces 2018 Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE Scholarship Recipients". Architects Foundation. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
  18. ^ "Design 50 2022: The Fifty People Who Shape Chicago | Newcity Design". 2022-03-07. Retrieved 2022-11-28.
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