MAD Classes

MAD TRANSFORMS LEARNING

We believe design initiatives can create transformative experiences for learners at MIT and beyond. At the Morningside Academy for Design (MAD), learning happens through hands-on work, shared inquiry, and the freedom to take creative risks. A focus on co-learning and co-creating nurtures polymathic thinking, while immersive and collaborative environments help students grow with clarity, confidence, and curiosity.

MIT offers you a world-class, hands-on design education, and now it’s even easier to find classes grounded in making and interdisciplinary design — whether you’re exploring social impact, innovation, entrepreneurship, or excellence in a technical field. Starting in Fall 2026, you’ll be able to find longstanding and emergent design classes — including offerings from MIT D-Lab, DesignX, and Design Plus — under the Making and Design (MAD) catalog designation.

The launch coincides with the opening of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse (the MET), which will join N51/N52 as a home base for MAD designation classes, makerspaces, and the Morningside Academy for Design community.

MIT has a rich history of advancing design theory, research, teaching, and practice, with considerable impact on campus and around the world. Whether creating lab experiments, musical scores, medical devices, consumer products, computer codes, business models, or architectural plans, we believe every MIT student could be considered a designer.

—Design at MIT White Paper

MAD.A01 DesignPlus: Exploring Design Across MIT

Designed for: Undergraduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-1-0 [P/D/F]
Semester: Fall

This seminar will help first-year students to explore possibilities in design across many fields at MIT. Design is a creative and interdisciplinary means of discovering problems and solutions. This seminar will help first-year students connect with design-oriented peers and faculty, and learn about ways to build design into the rest of their MIT education, regardless of major. The seminar is flexible to account for diverse student interests within the field of design. Through guest speakers, design exercises, and site visits, students will gain a broad perspective on designing and making across MIT. Enrollment limited to students in the DesignPlus First Year Learning Community.

MAD.501 MAD Fellows Seminar I

Designed for: Graduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-3
Lecture: M11-1
Semester: Fall

Explores design methodologies in graduate research as well as contemporary issues in design practices. Guest lecturers present themes of common interest and share sources of design inspiration. Limited to graduate student fellows supported by the Morningside Academy for Design.
J. Ochsendorf

MAD.701 / MAD.781 D-Lab: Development

(Same subject as 11.025[J], EC.701[J])
(Subject meets with 11.472[J], EC.781[J])
Designed for: Undergraduate students (701), graduate students (781)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-2-7
Lecture: MW3.30-5 Lab: F3.30-5
Semester: Fall

Issues in international development, appropriate technology and project implementation addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with community organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an optional IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Recitation sections focus on specific project implementation, and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the target countries as well as an introduction to the local languages. Enrollment limited by lottery; must attend first class session.
S. L. Hsu, B. Sanyal

Learn more about D-Lab: Development.

MAD.712 / MAD.792 Applications of Energy in Global Development

(Same subject as 2.652[J], EC.712[J])
(Subject meets with EC.782[J])

Designed for: Undergraduate students (712), graduate students (792)
Prereq: None
Units: 4-0-8
Lecture: MW1-3
Semester: Fall

Engages students in project-based learning, in collaboration with D-Lab community partners, to improve access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Teams work on off-grid energy projects addressing challenges in lighting, cooking, agricultural productivity, or other areas in collaboration with D-Lab community partners in developing countries. Project work includes assessment of user needs, technology identification, product design, prototyping, and development of implementation strategies to continue progress of ongoing projects. Optional IAP field visits may be available to test and implement the solutions developed during the semester. Students enrolled in the graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20; preference to students who have taken EC.711.

J. Maldonado

Learn more about Applications of Energy in Global Development.

MAD.771 D-Lab Field Study

(Same subject as EC.700)

Designed for: Undergraduate students
Prereq: One D-Lab subject
Semester: IAP

Provides the opportunity to gain direct fieldwork experience in a global context. Subject spans three-four weeks in which students continue work from a prior D-Lab subject. Students work directly with international community partners to find solutions to real world problems, focusing on one or more issues in education, design, or public service. Group presentations and written reflection required.

Learn more about D-Lab classes.

MAD.750 / MAD.785 Humanitarian Innovation: Design for Relief, Rebuilding, and Recovery

(Same subject as EC.750[J])
(Subject meets with EC.785[J])

Designed for: Undergraduate students (750), graduate students (785)
Prereq: None
Units: 4-0-8
Lecture: TR1-3
Semester: Fall

Explores the role innovation can and does play in how humanitarian aid is provided, and how it can impact people, products, and processes. Provides a fundamental background in the history and practice of humanitarian aid. Considers the various ways that design can be used to enhance aid, such as product and system design for affected populations, co-creation with affected populations, and capacity building to promote design by refugees and the displaced. Case studies and projects examine protracted displacement as well as recovery and resettlement, including efforts in Colombia, Lebanon, Nepal, Sudan, and Uganda. Potential for students to travel over the summer to partner communities.
A. Smith, M. Thompson

Learn more about Humanitarian Innovation.

MAD.768 / MAD.798 D-Lab: Gender and Development

(Same subject as EC.718[J], WGS.277[J])
(Subject meets with EC.798[J])

Designed for: Undergraduate students (768), graduate students (798)
Prereq: None
Units: 3-0-9
Lecture: W9.30-12.30
Semester: Fall

Explores gender roles, illuminates the power dynamics and root causes of inequality, and provides a framework for understanding gender dynamics. Develops skills to conduct a gender analysis and integrate gender-sensitive strategies into large- and small-scale development solutions. Prompts critical discussion about social, economic, and political conditions that shape gender in development. Begins with exploration of international development in the post-colonial era, using a gender lens, then provides students with the tools to integrate gender-sensitive strategies into international development work, with a particular focus on launching, building and scaling women's ventures. Opportunities may be available for international fieldwork over IAP. Meets with 24.234 when offered concurrently. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 12; must attend first class session.
E. McDonald, S. Haslanger

Learn more about D-Lab: Gender and Development.

MAD.802 Entrepreneurship in the Built Environment

First half of term
(Same subject as 1.462[J], 11.345[J])

Designed for: Graduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-0-4
Lecture: W9-11
Semester: Fall. Ends Oct 23.

Introduction to entrepreneurship and how it shapes the world we live in. Through experiential learning in a workshop setting, students start to develop entrepreneurial mindset and skills. Through a series of workshops, students are introduced to the concept of Venture Design to create new venture proposals for the built environment as a method to understand the role of the entrepreneur in the fields of design, planning, real estate, and other related industries.
S. Gronfeldt

MAD.804 Systems Change for Social Impact

Designed for: Graduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 3-2-7
Lecture: T9-11
Semester: Fall

Explores the difference between innovation, social innovation, and systems change for social impact. Presents frameworks and case studies from real systems change innovators to develop a more comprehensive view of complex problems and the systems they are part of ? systems that often keep those problems in place. Using experiential tools, students explore problem framing from the impact target's perspective and innovative, scalable approaches to systems change. Final deliverable is a written case study on systems change based on detailed actor mapping and interviews where students share their deeper understanding of a system they care about.

Y. Jimenez, S. Gronfeldt

MAD.800 DesignX Bootcamp

(Same subject as 4.245[J], 11.245[J])

Designed for: Graduate students
Registration limited to students accepted to the DesignX accelerator in the fall.
Units: 4-0-2
Term: IAP

Students in teams accepted to the DesignX accelerator begin work on their ventures in this intense two-week bootcamp. Participants identify the needs and problems that demonstrate the demand for their innovative technology, policy, products, and/or services. They research and investigate various markets and stakeholders pertinent to their ventures, and begin to test their ideas and thesis in real-world interviews and interactions. Subject presented in workshop format, giving teams the chance to jump-start their ventures together with a cohort of people working on ideas that span the realm of design, planning real estate, and the human environment. Registration limited to students accepted to the DesignX accelerator in the fall.
S. Gronfeldt

MAD.002 DesignPlus Exploration

Designed for: Undergraduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-1-0 [P/D/F]
Semester: Spring

Supports first-year students in designing and making individual exploratory projects. Through experimentation, iteration, and reflection, students develop ideas of personal interest while building skills in prototyping and communicating design intent. Structure is flexible to account for diverse student interests within the field of design. Presents a broad perspective on designing and making across MIT. Subject can count toward the 6-unit discovery-focused credit limit for first-year students. Limited to 12; preference to students in the DesignPlus First Year Learning Community.

MAD.502 MAD Fellows Seminar II

Designed for: Graduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-1-0
Semester: Spring

Features presentations and discussions with guest lecturers and faculty on contemporary issues in design practice. Students engage with a cohort of graduate peers conducting design-related research and with faculty exploring shared themes of interest, and share sources of design inspiration. Limited to graduate student fellows supported by the Morningside Academy for Design.

MAD.801 DesignX Accelerator

(Same subject as 4.246[J], 11.246[J])

Designed for: Graduate students
Registration limited to students accepted to the DesignX accelerator in the fall.
Units: 2-4-6
Semester: Spring

Students continue to work in their venture teams to advance innovative ideas, products, and services oriented to design, planning, and the human environment. Presented in a workshop format with supplementary lectures. Teams are matched with external mentors for additional support in business and product development. At the end of the term, teams pitch their ventures to an audience from across the school and MIT, investors, industry, and cities.
S. Gronfeldt

MAD.803 Transversal Design

First half of term
(Same subject as 4.360)

Designed for: Graduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-0-4
Semester: Spring. H-1.

This course combines the critical lens of art with the innovation framework of DesignX, fostering reflection before design interventions. A collaboration between ACT and the Morningside Academy of Design, it invites students to create and present visual representations of their chosen social impact focus.

S. Gronfeldt, A. Akšamija

MAD.805 Designing Creative Ventures

First half of term

Designed for: Undergraduate students
Prereq: None
Units: 2-0-4
Lecture: W2-4
Semester: Spring

Explores professional pathways in design, arts, and cultural practice through strategic, organizational, and economic lenses. Through lectures and labs, students engage with cultural management, international frameworks, and entrepreneurial tools while experimenting in crossovers where creative practice generates new forms of value for society and industry. Combines a value-based reading of cultural production with practical methods, preparing students to position their work in professional and market contexts with positive human impact.

S. Gronfeldt, G. Picchi