Girls Garage

How To Use Any Tool, Tackle Any Project, and Build The World You Want To See

Chronicle Books, Published 2020

Not sure which screws to buy? Need to fix a running toilet? With Girls Garage, you'll have the expertise to tackle these problems with your own hands. Or maybe you want to get creative and build something totally new. A birdhouse? A bookshelf? Girls Garage has you covered. Packed with illustrations that will build confidence for your next hardware store run, practical advice on everything from quick fixes to safety tips, and inspiring stories from real-world builder girls and women, this eye-catching volume makes the technical accessible. This is the guide every girl needs to take her life into her own hands. Girls, grab your toolbelt, and get building.

“An indispensable guide to building things, fixing things, and being a better, bolder version of yourself. If you’ve ever wondered how to change a tire, fix a running toilet, construct a birdhouse, or just feel a little braver in your own skin, this is the book for you. It’s accessible, inspirational, and actionable – and will help you understand why so many girls have benefitted so much from Emily Pilloton and her mission to get us all fearing less and building more.”

— Melinda Gates, Philanthropist and Author of The Moment of Lift

Tell Them I Built This

Transforming Schools, Communities, and Lives with Design-Based Education

TED Books, Published 2012

In 2009, author Emily Pilloton moved to Bertie County, North Carolina — the poorest county in the state with a population of just 20,000. There she launched Studio H, a design and build program meant to engage the creativity of high school students while bringing design innovation to the area.

Through the eyes of her students, Pilloton tells the story of the group’s hopes, failures and triumphs. According to Pilloton, we can dramatically revamp vocational education and build the change we wish to see in the world. And she should know: ultimately her students were given the key to the city by their mayor for initiating, designing, and building three public chicken coops and a 2000-square-foot public farmer’s market structure. Tell Them I Built This dramatically shows how creativity, critical thinking, citizenship and dirt-under-your-fingernails construction can radically transform both high school education and the local community where the students live.

Design Revolution

100 Products that Empower People

Metropolis Books/DAP, Published 2009

Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems--safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls--that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways--for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike.

Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of "stuff creators." Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year.