All of which presents further reason why a design academy benefits MIT. Design is not just a subject area but a skill. If many kinds of designs are possible, learning how to design—and how particular approaches are best applied—is especially valuable.
Off the drawing board
Since the Morningside Academy for Design launched, Ochsendorf and Yang have been giving campus presentations about the academy, hiring staff, and getting the inaugural class of fellows settled in. But well before they took the helm, getting the academy off the drawing board was a group effort.
Back in 2020, the two professors were given an assignment by Hashim Sarkis, dean of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), and Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering: to form an Institute-wide committee tasked with studying how to strengthen design on campus. By early 2021 that group,…
