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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Food Systems Action Lab Director Weslynne Ashton on Sustainability, Capitals, and Food Waste

How Food Waste Exemplifies the Systems Sustainability Problems We Face

February 12, 2023

In a recent interview with Illinois Tech Magazine, Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability Weslynne Ashton talks about our particular challenge with sustainability in the US, what is meant by the term “circular economy,” and how tackling food waste through the Food Systems Action Lab at ID can help move the needle on these issues.

“
Food waste is emblematic of the systems sustainability challenges that we have in the United States and the globe. At ID, we’re building our Food Systems Action Lab. We are developing design frameworks to better visualize current systems, identify key players and understand what they're doing, and facilitate interactions among diverse actors in order to create more sustainable and equitable food systems.
—Weslynne Ashton

Read the full 5-question interview at Illinois Tech Magazine.

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