Design Studio in Ford Offers New Option for Collaborative Learning

Northwestern engineering, design, and entrepreneurship students seeking a gathering place now have a new option: the Design Studio in Ford.

Located in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center, the 1,700-square-foot, glass-paneled room provides classroom space for Northwestern’s Segal Design Center, Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and the MMM and Master of Product Design and Development Management programs.

When not being used for classes, the studio space (Ford 1.230) is available as a collaborative workspace to Northwestern students, faculty, and staff. The room is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and a WildCARD is needed for access.

Moveable tables can be reconfigured to facilitate group work in various settings, providing an improved learning experience for students in fields based on collaboration.

“All our classes highly leverage team learning, but traditional classrooms do not allow teams to effectively sit together,” said Michael Marasco, clinical professor of industrial engineering and management sciences and director of the Farley Center. “We can now seamlessly transition from class discussion to team meetings in the same space. Even when we fully pack the studio space, students still prefer it from a tiered classroom. I love having all teams in one space versus spread out across multiple spaces.”

New office space for the Farley Center is located adjacent to the Design Studio in Ford, along with offices for four new McCormick undergraduate advisers and an executive conference room for McCormick.