What do IED students talk about in their thesis?

IED Italia (Istituto Europeo di Design), the international school of Design, Fashion, Visual Arts and Communication, has just concluded the 2019/2020 academic year. It was a particular year, halfway through, interrupted by the health emergency and reinvented by online teaching, in full respect of social distancing. But as per tradition, for all students at the end of their course, the end of the lessons coincides with the beginning of the graduation session. This year's graduates, like everyone else, had to deal with the lockdown, which coincided with the months of the most intense work to finalize their projects. But as many students also told nss magazine on the pages of COVID-19 Next Creative Voices, from a dramatic situation new hints arose both for the contents and the work processes.

This year, as the last act of a year that made "change" its guide-line, IED has a unique theme for all three-year theses: RESPECT! PEOPLE. Future. Places. Students were asked to reinterpret their projects according to a single, great message of respect: respect understood in its many facets, which includes raising awareness of the environmental emergency, eliminating inequalities and building the community more and more solid and supportive.

The Projects

Many proposals supported the artisanal activity and the creative industry during the crisis period. Among the most interesting is the Jewelry Design Me-We project, which has helped a goldsmith laboratory in the development of 3D design technology and is embodied in a collection of gold jewellery, stones and resin details. Interior Design students, on the other hand, are focused on the need to feel at home even when forced to stay at home and have organized the conscious awareness of an apartment in the centre of Turin, focusing on safety, enhancement, functionality and flexibility of spaces. The collection of Fashion Design Human After All, however, starting from some physical "imperfections" such as scoliosis reinterpreted by the aesthetic canon of Le Modulor by Le Corbusier, the module based on a standardized man, a measure of the relationship between the human being and the living space.

On the subject of inequalities, the WE ARE 24: Il Calcio contro l’omofobia exploited a football event, a sport in which gender discrimination is still a problem, to convey a message of inclusion. Supported by incisive communication, the project plans to print the number "24", which is a homophobic insult in Brazil, on the shoulders of the players of a special football tournament in which six teams (dressed in the colours of the rainbow) will play to defeat the homophobia.

On the environmental front, the S.canny project supported FFF - Friday For Future Milan by developing a scanner with access to an augmented reality that allows you to explore the surroundings in search of alternative and eco-sustainable practices. Other projects, such as the one in collaboration with Enel X, an Enel Group company, are involved in testing and developing innovative products and digital solutions in the sectors where energy shows its greatest potential. In the field of Product Design, Tribe - Mobility aims to develop a 2/3/4 wheel urban vehicle (owned or shared) that takes into account the social, structured, economic, technological factors and trends that make up today's scenario, while the 4x4 All project, in collaboration with Suzuki, aims at the creation - always with a green approach - of an electric vehicle aimed at Generation Z, young people influenced by phenomena such as the great use of social networks and the passion for the game.

Some projects were dedicated to the medical field, in collaboration with the Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro (which led to a restyling of the Foundation newsletter, a free six-monthly publication both in paper and digital form) and the G. Hospital. Brotzu of Cagliari, for which some Interior Design students worked on the redevelopment of the children's wards of Pediatric Surgery and Child Neuropsychiatry. In the field of Advertising Communication, From the cities to the communities, on the other hand, is the project developed with Airbnb to promote inclusiveness and respect also in the tourism sector.

Milan is also the protagonist of many projects. Fucina 360, for example, aims to create a network and a co-working space, sale and presentation of the creations of young emerging designers to sediment a new artistic-cultural reference point in the city, unprecedented at the university level. Communication Design students took over the redevelopment project of the Santa Giulia construction site (a residential district in the south-east of the city), started in 2004 and discontinued in 2009, to make it a sharing district and not just a residential one.