Mobile Makers, founded in 2017, is an award-winning nonprofit organization making design education accessible to all people. Through youth design and skill-building workshops, community engagement, public installations, and pop-ups hosted out of a retrofitted mail truck, Mobile Makers encourages conversations about positive change in the built environment.

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Brian Griffin

Mobile Makers, in collaboration with the historic Stone Temple Missionary Baptist Church, co-designed and unveiled the “Woven Porch” at the 2025 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival. At the festival’s end, the outdoor pavilion will be moved to its permanent home in a former empty lot. The sukkah will act as a porch—a threshold and gathering space for slowness, connection, and mutual aid. View more recent projects.

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The mezzanine and conference room give Mobile Makers team members dedicated spaces to work independently and collaboratively. These rooms let light in while creating places to focus away from the makerspace and workshop where programs are facilitated

This is the final week of fall programs! 🍂 Over the last 10 weeks we’ve met with students ages 8-18 for fun, after-school design explorations. Thank you to everyone who joined us and be sure to look out for our winter programming announcements

Great news! @chicagodpd has announced the winning proposal for the 3811 W. Madison RFQ and we’re so proud to be a part of the team! Westgate, led by @valeriodewalttrain and @latent_design, is a 1.8 acre site that will soon be affordable housing

Our library is a cozy place to curl up and find inspiration among the hanging Pothos plants. 🌱 Our giant bookshelf holds a collection of books, magazines, design objects, and models created by past program participants. Over the last few months we&r

Over 100 @chipubschools students living in Humboldt Park, Bridgeport, Ashburn, Pilsen, and Beverly have visited our space this fall on @embarcchicago field trips! The kids learn about what it’s like to be a designer by participating in a proble

Now that we’re settling in, we’re excited to start sharing some final photography of our space!✨Our lobby is the first thing you see when you walk by on Kimball Ave. It serves as a dedicated place to welcome guests and check in students f

We’re excited to share that we’re partnering with the @aspenartmuseum on their 2025 Youth Art Expo themed Architecture & Imagination! This unique biennial invites K-12 students to engage their creativity as they reimagine spaces, buil

We just finished our first block of 5-week fall programs! ✨ In Sketch Lab, students learned about drawing fundamentals, played with different techniques and styles, and learned about all the ways designers use drawing to communicate ideas. In City Ma

Only a couple more chances to catch us with the Mobile Makerspace this season!!! 🍂 This Saturday we’ll be at the final Community Day at the Overton Exchange from 11am-3pm. See you there!

The space has been buzzing lately, and we are so excited about it!!! 🐝💕

We loved seeing “Who Says?” featured on New York City @jcdecauxna bus shelters as part of the Future Ours project, which was curated in response to the @unitednations Summit of the Future! Thank you @art2030org and @kunsthalcharlottenborg

We had so much fun at our last pop-up, Sundays on the Boulevard: Animalpalooza, in North Lawndale! 🦓 We’ll be back at the same spot this Sunday, Oct 6th for the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival from 1-5pm. See you there!

“I loved that Mobile Makers was able to provide my students not only with engaging curriculum around thinking critically about design and urban planning, but that they also showed them diverse career possibilities in this field.”

— 8th Grade Teacher

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