During the Independent Activities Period (IAP) from January 5–30, 2026, the MIT Morningside Academy for Design will offer workshops and activities over a “MAD IAP.”
This page allows you to browse and directs you to individual registration links and lottery applications. Note that some activities may already be fully subscribed, and details are subject to change.
Happy IAP!
"Before the Build: The Inspiration Phase" is an interactive workshop designed to unlock new perspectives and enhance creative problem-solving by embracing inspiration as a powerful catalyst for better prototypes and products. Positioned as the step before prototyping, this session helps participants strengthen the foundation of their ideas by exploring how inspiration fuels innovation across art, music, design, and technology.
Hosted by Josef (Yossi) Hayut, MITdesignX Entrepreneur in Residence, Managing Director of Wix Ventures and founder of Wix Tomorrow.
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The Upper Courtyard by Richard Fleischner
Join the List Visual Arts Center and MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD) for a 3-day IAP workshop exploring the history and legacy of public space design. Participants will establish a shared understanding of land art, urban diagramming, and performative interventions as a means to design and prototype interventions for Richard Fleischner’s historic courtyards on MIT's campus. Registration required. Registration will pause on December 23 and reopen on January 5 at 9am ET.
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Activating Public Art through Design
Provides a technical introduction to campus/district building decarbonization using 5th & 6th Generation Thermal Energy Networks. Introductory lectures (1 hour/week) plus field trips (3 hours/week) to four Low/Zero Carbon sites in the Boston area provide firsthand experience with the technologies, design and planning involved in campus/district decarbonization.
All field trips take place during class sessions. (Transportation is arranged and free.)
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Sarah Oppenheimer, S-334473, 2019. Installation view: MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2019. Photo: Richard Barnes
Programming Agency is a three-day workshop open to the MIT community. The workshop is convened by artist Sarah Oppenheimer, who was selected to realize N-05001, a new percent-for-art commission in MIT’s Metropolitan Warehouse (Building W41). Using N-05001 as a case study, the session will investigate how dynamic shifts in the architectural environment shape perceptions of social agency.
See full details and agenda at MIT SA+P
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Participation
This event is open to MIT Community members only
Maximum capacity: 20 participants. Registration required.
In this two-week series, students will learn to develop a design portfolio.
Week one will introduce skills for developing a complex graphic design project while prompting critical questions about how pages function as sites of organization and meaning. Students will examine principles of structure and composition as they begin shaping a framework to support the presentation of their design work. Alongside this, we will consider broader inquiries such as: What can a page be? How do designers construct relationships between text and image?
Week two extends these inquiries to the scale of the portfolio. Students will explore what a portfolio can be while working on sequencing projects and combining text and image to communicate ideas.
Students have the choice to participate in Week 1, Week 2, or both.
For more information contact Jo Lobdell (jlobdell[at]mit.edu).
IAP Course Registration Details
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In January, we're discussing Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. A limited supply of complimentary copies are available from MAD; contact mitmad[a]mit.edu. More info on the event page.
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MIT Gala is a student initiative celebrating artistic innovation, fashion, and technology.
Learn how to implement multiple types of machine and hand sewn seams. Due to limited capacity, this workshop is exclusively for MIT students. No registration required.
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Learn how to implement multiple types of garment closures, including buttons, zippers, clasps, and grommets. Due to limited capacity, this workshop is exclusively for MIT students. No registration required.
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The MIT Make / Project Manus community is offering a number of maker workshops including some returning favorites. Check out the website at https://make.mit.edu/ for more information.
Make custom coat hooks, keychains, bookends or other small metal objects using the Fablight metal laser cutter & press break. Use the sandblaster and powder coating setup to make them glossy & bright. Some CAD, Fusion or Adobe illustrator experience will be very helpful, no other skills required. Hosted by Jess Osserman.
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Learn to setup and knit a simple project (think scarf or leg warmers) on a standard of bulky gauge knitting machine. This workshop is for people already know how to hand-knit and are machine curious! We only have two machines, so bring along a hand project to work on while you wait. We will have some basic yarn, but bringing your own is yarn is encouraged.
Hosted by Jess Osserman
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In this workshop, we will tackle a problem relevant to the cold month of January - a seasonally relevant engineering problem that we all can relate to. A part-empty box of tissues. The friction to release a tissue is greater than the force of gravity on the weight of the tissue box. Hosted by Lee Zamir.
Registration / Waiting List Link
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During this time, Jane Halpern will be running a Quilting Workshop that uses scraps of any size and shape.
PREREQUISITE: You must already know how to use a sewing machine - including threading a machine and winding bobbins.
Registration / Waiting List Link
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Drop-in workshop to dye with plants! We’ll experiment with a few natural dyes, using flowers, avocado pits & onion skins to dye fabric & yarn. No experience required. Hosted by Jess Osserman. Drop-in (limited to 20)
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Come learn the basics of Computer Aided Manufacture with Fusion360. CAM is the art of designing toolpaths to enable a mill or lathe to cut your part via CNC, or computer numeric control.
Please create a student account with Autodesk prior to your training in order to expedite the process. If you wish to use your own computer, please download Fusion360 prior to the training.
Hosted by Seth Avecilla.
Registration / Waiting List Link
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Hosted by Eleni Morales
Registration closed.
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Learn the basics of the manual lathe! This set of workshops revolves around turning a two piece metal ring. Students may register for one of the four workshop sessions. Each session will consist of an initial 2-hour training on the manual lathe with hands-on practice, followed by personalized shop time with a partner or solo to work on their ring. Hosted by Chris Haynes, MAD Shop Manager. Limited to 4 students per workshop.
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