Teaching Public Mechanics — University of Michigan

What I Saw

Most design education treats technology as inherently progressive—the solution to every problem. Students learn to build, launch, and scale, but rarely to maintain, repair, or decommission. They’re taught to think like founders, not mechanics.

But public services don’t need more disruptive innovation. They need people who understand how systems break, how to keep them running, and how to repair them when they fail. That’s what Public Mechanics is about.

What I’m Teaching

At the University of Michigan’s Taubman College, I teach students in the Urban Technology program how to think about technology as public infrastructure—not products.

Core concepts:

1. Maintenance Over Innovation

Technology in the public sector isn’t about launching the next big thing. It’s about keeping critical systems running, fixing what’s broken, and recognizing that maintenance is where most of the real work happens.

We study:

• Why maintenance is invisible (and what happens when it fails)
• How to design for repair, not just deployment
• The economics of long-term system stewardship
• Decision systems that need oversight, not just automation

2. Consequence Mapping

Students learn to trace downstream effects of design decisions before they ship. We map:

• Who gets access (and who gets locked out)
• What happens when systems fail
• How edge cases become human consequences
• The difference between intended outcomes and actual effects

3. Public Service Design in an AI Age

AI is making decisions about benefits, housing, employment, and criminal justice. Students need to understand:

• How automated decision systems work in government
• What transparency and accountability mean for algorithmic systems
• How to design contestability and human review into automated processes
• The difference between decision support and decision replacement

4. Building for Institutions

Startups can pivot. Governments can’t. Students learn:

• How procurement, compliance, and political cycles shape what’s possible
• Why constraints clarify strategy
• How to work within bureaucracy without getting crushed by it
• The difference between civic tech (temporary) and civic infrastructure (enduring)

What Students Build

Not apps. Not pitch decks. Infrastructure thinking.

Projects include:

• Auditing existing public service systems for failure points
• Designing human review processes for automated decisions
• Mapping the real cost of “free” technology in public contexts
• Building documentation and handoff plans (not just prototypes)
• Analyzing what happens when digital services get decommissioned

The Approach

I don’t teach theory divorced from practice. Students engage with real public systems, talk to caseworkers and administrators, and confront the gap between how they think services should work and how they actually do.

This isn’t about learning to code or mastering a design tool. It’s about understanding power, responsibility, and how to build things that serve the public—even when it’s hard, slow, and unglamorous.

What’s Next

I’m developing this into a full Public Mechanics curriculum that other institutions can adapt. The goal isn’t just to train students—it’s to shift how design education thinks about technology’s role in public life.

We don’t need more people who can build. We need people who can maintain, repair, and recognize when building isn’t the answer.

What This Demonstrates

I can translate years of federal and public sector experience into pedagogy. I don’t just practice—I teach others how to think differently about technology, power, and public service.

This work builds the next generation of people who understand that good design in the public sector isn’t about innovation. It’s about responsibility.