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The Institute of Design’s fall 2024 immersion utilized futuring tools amid intensive deep dives into �糵���� civic, cultural, and industrial institutions to explore potential outcomes for the Windy City. 

The immersion program is a week-long experiential program that targeted to ID M.D.M. students. The cohort delves into a specific time and space, shifting their mindsets out of a classroom setting and truly immersing themselves in an exploratory environment. 

Similar to 2023, a cohort of students from arrived in �糵���� for the event alongside ID students.  

The itinerary this year kicked off with an introductory social at the workspace, where students heard from speaker Caleb Cardner, founding partner of and the digital strategy leader for United States President Barack Obama's political advocacy group. 

Gardner spoke about his work and answered questions before students headed out on site visits, starting with the . Students spoke with City of �糵���� officials and visited the �糵���� History Museum. They listened to officials from the People’s Action Institute, a community organizing group with deep �糵���� roots that date to the 1960s.  

To highlight the city’s status as a cornerstone of international commerce, students visited the new downtown offices of the multinational Ferrero Group, which includes and strategic R&D lab. 

“I’m continually impressed by people around the city who are wanting to talk with our students and willing to give their time and expertise to think through some of these deeper ideas,” says ID Visiting Assistant Professor Jessica Meharry, who helped organize the fall 2024 immersion. “Even students living in �糵���� got to see �糵���� in a different way.” 

After site visits concluded, students engaged in workshops exploring the concept of futures, using futuring tools to imagine civic possibilities for �糵���� within a given domain or issue. Teams explored issues such as mobility, health care, housing, economic development, and education, envisioning more equitable potentialities in 20 years. 

“You’re learning design tools and methods, strategies for innovation, you’re learning how to work with others; collaboration is huge for our field,” says Meharry.  “Our two institutions—which are quite similar in many ways as leading design institutions in the world—teach some things differently. 

Exposure to new and different methods and styles of thinking is key in design. Such exposure happens at an exponential level in these ID-PoliMi immersions. 

“This unique program combined hands-on workshops with insightful discussions in diverse community spaces, giving us firsthand insights into how design and policy can drive impactful change,” says PoliMi student Ashok Chakravarthy Koruprolu. “[I’m] looking forward to continuing these conversations and learning from this incredible network of changemakers.” 

Adds ID student Shreya Mathur (M. Des. ’26), “This collaboration between ID and PoliMi sparked conversations around the potential of design to address civic and policy-level challenges, and I’m excited to keep exploring how we can contribute to shaping better futures.” 

ID student Regina Ellis (M. Des.+M.B.A. ’26) agrees, “I gained so much from the experience—and it actually made me feel more confident when approaching my regular coursework. The experience also opened me to new the kinds of design and industries that I am now interested in. There was a stark difference in how I performed after immersion.”  

During the immersion, students used a futuring tool called Futures Wheels, which prompted them to build concepts from a center trend or driver, based on sequential potential actions. Students started with a concept that was happening in real life that they wanted to continue into the future and amplified or scaled it. A second futuring tool, called Three Horizons, allowed students to envision disruptions that would minimize the occurrence of a negative action or consequence. 

“In the end they all created narratives, so we wanted to see a real story of what this future looked like from a human-centered point of view,” Meharry says. 

In the spring, ID students will have the opportunity to tour Milan with the cohort of students from Politecnico di Milano that they met in �糵����.

Photo: Stefano Ogrisek, partner at KW Forester ITALIA, speaks to students at the Margraf showroom in �糵����