Andrew Phillips is well known to many in Philadelphia as an accomplished, respected educator and an award-winning architect. Through his work, he earned a strong reputation as an intuitive and highly successful teacher of architecture and design at both high school and university levels. Andrew is a tireless ally of marginalized communities, who has helped generations of students develop their design agency as a vehicle for empowerment and positive change.
Andrew served as Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Design Education at the Charter High School for Architecture + Design (CHAD) and, more recently, as Chair of Design at String Theory Schools. Andrew proved his leadership skills and his unique ability to empower students of all backgrounds, especially those faced with socioeconomic inequities and systemic racism. The first half of his education career, Andrew taught at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design and helped to spearhead a deep exploration into the discipline of architecture, its inquiry processes, and its representational dialogues. His interest in critical making, the affordances of design tools and techniques, the mindsets, and the means necessary for catalysts of agency and social change have been a common thread and priority throughout Andrew’s career.
This fall, Andrew will complete his dissertation, Think with your Hands: Design Practices in K-12 Education for a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania. Andrew holds a Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The Pennsylvania State University.
From 1995 to 2014, Andrew co-led dommertphillips, p.c., an award-winning design firm with a unique portfolio of projects serving diverse socio-economic, cultural, and environmental priorities. His current firm apphillips offers design education consulting services and workshops to institutional, professional, and non-profit organizations. This included leading the Fallingwater Teachers' Residency for a half-dozen years. Andrew has a variety of published works and is a frequent speaker on K-12 Design Education.