“If You Build It” follows designer-activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller (both from Studio H) to rural Bertie County, the poorest in North Carolina, where they work with local high school students to help transform both their community and their lives. Living on credit and grant money and fighting a change-resistant school board, Pilloton and Miller lead their students through a year-long, full-scale design and build project that does much more than just teach basic construction skills: it shows ten teenagers the power of design-thinking to re-invent not just their town but their own sense of what's possible.
If You Build It is a full-length documentary film that chronicles the students, projects, and work of Studio H high school design/build program. Made by Patrick Creadon and Christine O’Malley, If You Build It tells the stories of 13 students from Bertie County, North Carolina, who dreamed up a beautiful solution that would change the face of their hometown, then went out and built all 2,000 square feet of it.
Studio H is an in-school design/build class for 8th-11th grade students. First launched in Bertie County, NC and now based at Realm Charter School in Berkeley, CA, Studio H students apply their core subject learning to design and build audacious and socially transformative projects. Students of Studio H have previously dreamed up, designed, and constructed a 2000-square-foot farmers market pavilion, a pop-up park, laser-etched skateboards, sculptural concrete public furniture, roadside farmstands, and more. Through experimentation, non-stop production, tinkering, and a lot of dirt under their fingernails, students develop the creative capital, critical thinking, and citizenship necessary for their own success and for the future of their communities.
If You Build It is a full-length documentary film that chronicles the students, projects, and work of Studio H high school design/build program. Made by Patrick Creadon and Christine O’Malley, If You Build It tells the stories of 13 students from Bertie County, North Carolina, who dreamed up a beautiful solution that would change the face of their hometown, then went out and built all 2,000 square feet of it.
Studio H is an in-school design/build class for 8th-11th grade students. First launched in Bertie County, NC and now based at Realm Charter School in Berkeley, CA, Studio H students apply their core subject learning to design and build audacious and socially transformative projects. Students of Studio H have previously dreamed up, designed, and constructed a 2000-square-foot farmers market pavilion, a pop-up park, laser-etched skateboards, sculptural concrete public furniture, roadside farmstands, and more. Through experimentation, non-stop production, tinkering, and a lot of dirt under their fingernails, students develop the creative capital, critical thinking, and citizenship necessary for their own success and for the future of their communities.