Maya Bird-Murphy

Maya Bird-Murphy is a Chicago-based architectural designer, educator, and cultural producer. At the age of twenty-five, while working full-time and completing her Master of Architecture, she launched Mobile Makers, an award-winning nonprofit that makes design education accessible through workshops, community engagement, public installations, and pop-ups hosted out of a retrofitted mail truck. Bird-Murphy’s practice centers on expanding access to design education, empowering people to see themselves as agents of change in the spaces they inhabit and advocating for change in the built environment. Her work challenges the gatekeeping that often defines the profession and has welcomed thousands of children and community members to engage in architecture. Bird-Murphy loves designing spaces but excels at designing new systems that explore the expansiveness of architecture beyond four walls.