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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Laura Forlano Keynotes Biodesign Online Symposium

ID professor speaks on Wednesday, April 21

By Kristin Gecan

April 5, 2021

Biodesign Online Symposium

ID associate professor Laura Forlano will keynote the Biodesign Online Symposium hosted by Biodesign Challenge, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Toledo. The symposium will bring together the biodesign community across the US Midwest and kick off a regional hub for biodesign practitioners, research institutions, and students to share resources, collaborate on projects, and develop new teaching practices.

Biodesign bridges art, design, and biotech to reimagine a more sustainable and thoughtful future.

“
In the face of the global climate crisis, everything must be redesigned. The growing cross-disciplinary community around biodesign and, in particular, the Biodesign Challenge, offers exciting explorations of alternative possible futures for more-than-human co-existence.
—ID Associate Professor Laura Forlano

In a Zoom event that is free and open to the public, experts will speak about their work and ambitions for biodesign. Biodesign Challenge alumni will offer short talks about their projects and design processes.

Laura Forlano will also speak as part of the DFA Sparks Series on Wednesday, April 7 with Deepa Butoliya.

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