Maya Bird-Murphy

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

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

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

Maya has received the following awards:

• 2018 - Emerging Designer Award from the BAC Alumni Association.[13]
• 2020 - Alan Madison Award from AIA Illinois.[4]
• 2021 - Graduates of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D.) Award from Ball State University's College of Architecture and Planning.[14]
• 2022 - Pierre Keller Award from Hublot.[15]
• 2022 - Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab Award from Theaster Gates, Prada Group, and Rebuild Foundation.[16]

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

• African-American architects

References

1. Ponchione. (2022). BIG THINKER: Maya Bird-Murphy makes design accessible to young people. Hospitality Design, 44(5), 75.
2. 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. "2020 HONOR AWARDS". AIA Illinois. Retrieved 2022-12-11.
5. "Emerging Voices: Design + Diversity Conference Fellows". AIGA EMERGE. 2018-09-10. Retrieved 2022-11-28.
6. "Emerging Professionals Exhibit 2018: The Power of Design - AIA". www.aia.org. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
7. "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. "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.

External links

• Mobile Makers site