In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Re-Thinking Systems

Re-Thinking Systems

Covers key principles and concepts with complex adaptive systems in relation to human-centered design.

Objective & Outcomes

Even though it is well acknowledged that the unprecedented interconnectivity of the world economy, the global society, and the natural environment has a direct impact on the local lives and well-being of communities, change-makers such as corporations, NGOs, investors, entrepreneurs, and government agencies struggle to understand how these forces can shape contexts, circumstances, and experiences. Thus, their ability to envision sustainable solutions and livelihoods are limited. 

In this course, students will learn key principles and concepts on complex adaptive systems in relation to design in systems for understanding how innovation practices are shaping value creation and new economies.

Typical Schedule

  • Session 1: Complex Adaptive Systems, Complex Spaces of Innovation & Agent-Based Design
  • Session 2: Interaction & Arrangement of Systems
  • Session 3: Integration & Dynamics of Systems
  • Session 4: Interconnectivity & Anatomy of Systems
  • Session 5: Iteration, Cycles of Systems & Equity Framework
  • Session 6: Leverage Points & What IF Questions
  • Session 7: System Narratives & Transformation
  • Session 8: Reframing Systems & Frameworks Application
  • Session 9-13: Reframing Systems: Working Session

See all MDes Courses