“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” So spoke the great Vermonter and philosopher, Professor and Doctor John Dewey. At its core, If You Build It is about that universal truth.
The story does not lack for authentic human drama. The school superintendent, Dr. Chip Zullinger, of bitterly impoverished Bertie County, North Carolina, takes a chance in a failing area and brings two innovative, untraditional new educators to his high school. Designer Emily Pilloton and architect Matt Miller arrive with heady dreams of revitalizing an area on its knees and set up a shop class, entitled “Studio H,” for ten high school juniors, with the objective of teaching design, and then actually building the students’ project – a Farmer’s Market for the town. Not long after, Zullinger is fired by a frustratingly inept school board stuck in old, broken ways, and Matt and Emily lose their funding.
The story does not lack for authentic human drama. The school superintendent, Dr. Chip Zullinger, of bitterly impoverished Bertie County, North Carolina, takes a chance in a failing area and brings two innovative, untraditional new educators to his high school. Designer Emily Pilloton and architect Matt Miller arrive with heady dreams of revitalizing an area on its knees and set up a shop class, entitled “Studio H,” for ten high school juniors, with the objective of teaching design, and then actually building the students’ project – a Farmer’s Market for the town. Not long after, Zullinger is fired by a frustratingly inept school board stuck in old, broken ways, and Matt and Emily lose their funding.
- 8/20/2015
- by Kyle North
- JustPressPlay.net
"Constraint builds ingenuity," declares Matthew Miller in the documentary "If You Build It," with his life and business partner Emily Pilloton quickly quipping, "We're masochists a little bit." And that little exchange perfectly encapsulates the determined spirit of the pair as they bring their fledgling student program Studio H to Windsor in Bertie County, one of the poorest in North Carolina. And the concept is simple: design, build, transform. That's the motto Miller and Pilloton live by, and in the film by Patrick Creadon, we witness the tremendous sacrifice they make to prove their simple idea that giving back to the community is a lesson that leaves an impression that lasts far beyond the classroom. And for the kids of Windsor, the classroom is mostly a laptop. With budgets being squeezed, some of the students see as much as half of their course load taking place online (including phys ed,...
- 1/10/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
A polished, if not exactly thorough, portrait of one North Carolina school administrator’s attempt to modernize shop class—and perhaps the entire education system—If You Build It plops two liberal (read: progressive) elite (read: educated) design activists in Bertie County, the poorest in the state. There, designer Emily Pilloton and architect Matthew Miller—partners at work and at home—set up Studio H (for “humanity,” “habitats,” “health” and “happiness”) to teach a class of 10 juniors to “Design. Build. Transform.” (They’re big on taglines.) Over the course of the year, their students learn to dream up, develop and construct a backyard game, chicken...
- 1/10/2014
- Pastemagazine.com
In If You Build It, a documentary about a high-concept high school product-design class in, of all places, rural North Carolina, director Patrick Creadon collects rich material but builds a rickety structure.
The program is Studio H, led by two enterprising, idealistic architects who are brought to rural Bertie County to inject new life into a stalled community's educational system by a visionary superintendent of schools — who, early in the film, is canned by the stuck-in-the-mud school board, marking the last we see of him.
The board agrees to continue with Studio H only after the designers, Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller, forego any salary. Creadon's great strength here is in his unsentimental introduction of a slice of America often treated with sentim...
The program is Studio H, led by two enterprising, idealistic architects who are brought to rural Bertie County to inject new life into a stalled community's educational system by a visionary superintendent of schools — who, early in the film, is canned by the stuck-in-the-mud school board, marking the last we see of him.
The board agrees to continue with Studio H only after the designers, Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller, forego any salary. Creadon's great strength here is in his unsentimental introduction of a slice of America often treated with sentim...
- 1/7/2014
- Village Voice
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