This Designer Is Changing Architecture Education With a Solar-Powered Mobile Classroom

Designer Maya Bird-Murphy wants kids to know about architecture. She grew up surrounded by Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and her own youth was steeped in the lessons of good design. Local summer camps and field trips to Prairie-style homes gave her the opportunity to consider a career in reshaping the future of our cities. As one of the few people of color in her undergraduate program at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, however, she had a realization: Design as a career wasn’t so visible to everyone.