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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ID’s Equitable Healthcare Action Lab and UChicago Medicine Collaborate to Drive Change
Bringing Human-Centered Design to the Front Lines of Care Delivery
April 27, 2023
To change how South Side patients, healthcare providers, and communities deliver and receive medical care, ID’s Equitable Healthcare Action Lab, led by Associate Professor Kim Erwin, is collaborating with the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation at UChicago Medicine.
HDSI has been an ideal partner because of its dedication to promoting new ideas and new approaches in healthcare. Finding ways to infuse design into multiple parts of the UChicago Medicine healthcare system has been a great privilege, and I look forward to expanding on those efforts as our collaboration continues.
—Kim Erwin, Director of ID’s Equitable Healthcare Action Lab and Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Design Methods
ID Action Labs
The Equitable Healthcare Action Lab is one of three Action Labs launched at the Institute of Design last year. The Food Systems Action Lab is co-led by Associate Professors Weslynne Ashton and Maura Shea. The Sustainable Solutions Action Lab is led by Charles L. Owen Professor of Design Carlos Teixeira, who is also the Director of the Action Labs.
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Through the Action Labs, the Institute of Design becomes a driver for design-led implementation projects and a true resource for our neighbors. Solution-oriented and human-centered, the Action Labs act as catalysts for systemic change within our community by taking faculty research and transforming it into real-world applications.
