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.

Skip to Main Content
institute
of desiGn
Search

Weslynne Ashton Starts Dual Appointment with ID and Stuart School of Business

June 29, 2020

Weslynne Ashton

Weslynne Ashton starts a dual appointment as associate professor at ID and associate professor of environmental management and sustainability at the Stuart School of Business in the 2020–21 academic year.

Weslynne’s work focuses on the circular economy, optimizing resource flows, and human benefits of socioecological systems. She has collaborated with ID faculty and PhD students for the last three years, providing invaluable connections between management, sustainability science, and design in building more sustainable and equitable futures.

At ID, Weslynne’s teaching and advising will focus on developing regenerative economies by integrating environmental and social sustainability, as well as incorporating adaptive systems analysis into the design innovation process. At Stuart, Weslynne will continue research and teaching activities in sustainability, business innovation and social entrepreneurship through school’s MS in Environmental Management and Sustainability and the Masters in Business Administration.

Read more about Weslynne and her work at Stuart.