At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago we encourage and practice a vibrant engagement with design.
Many different interpretations of design are entering public discourse and are evolving and converging in a fast changing world where designers need to be comfortable with uncertainty and complexity — often having to locate their creative imagination in paradoxical opportunity outside the traditional boundaries of design. Art, design, science and entrepreneurial business are teaming to create new protocols and information flows. With the social shaping of technology out-dated bureaucratic mechanisms are breaking down around alternative environmental, social, and political sensibilities. Design is at the core of these changes in translating thought into the more tangible. The academy responds with significant alternatives in education and, through collaborative partnerships, a network of informed personalities contribute to the design of our changing world — making it dense, fluid, and dynamic. How designers explore this complexity is by definition a highly creative act of design.
As faculty we believe that future designers will need to be thinking designers — willing to explore unknown territory and engage problems not yet defined, taking risks while confident enough to find opportunity in failure
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Deep explorations in the studio context are required where the art of thinking and making translate into the ineffable — at the very intersection of art, design and architecture. Explorations that are useful beyond the realm of design and adding significant meaning to environments across all scales — challenging the fluid borderline that defines the spatial, the world of objects, and the many opportunities in cognitive and non-cognitive environments yet to be explored.
We take play and risk seriously.
We give freedom with the one hand while expecting accountability with the other. With the rigor of thinking flowing from this philosophical approach we are breeding a new kind of relevance for future designers and architects. We launch future individual voices that are willing to lead in the fast mutating cultural landscapes — changing the field from the inside out while connecting past traditions with future possibilities.
36 S. Wabash St. Room 1402
Chicago, IL, US , 60603-2925
