Stephanie Phillips on valuing materials and a silo-busting mindset

Stephanie Phillips leads the City of San Antonio's Deconstruction & Circular Economy Program. Housed in the Office of Historic Preservation, the program prioritizes building material reuse as a tool for affordable housing repair, traditional trades revival, economic innovation, equitable access to high-quality resources, and cultural and community resilience. 

Her work contributes to nonprofits and coalitions that focus on embodied carbon and circular economy policy and advocacy, including the Climate Heritage Network and Build Reuse. She is the co-founder of Circular San Antonio and is a 2023 J.M. Kaplan Fund Innovation Prize awardee.

Her work aims to foster collaborative partnerships that get us closer to creating a regenerative built environment. Part of Stephanie’s story is about how she came to think that “design is everything” and how she has translated that to a career that sees repair, reuse, and stewardship as key elements of community benefit. “What we are doing can happen anywhere,” Stephanie says. “It requires a silo-busting, transdisciplinary mindset. Bringing everyone to the table is how you effect change.”