Doors of Perception’s John Thackara was a member of start-up team (and of the Steering Committee until the end of 2003) that established Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. This new research institute in Italy was supported by Olivetti and Telecom Italia. The Institute’s Director was Gillian Crampton Smith.
The specific tasks of Doors were to:
– help develop and articulate the institute’s basic concept and organisational form;
– define and articulate the roles of, and benefits to, industry sponsors;
– organize an international workshop of experts to refine the research programme;
– write job and person profiles for professors, researchers and students;
– create and implement launch phase communications and produce inaugural event;
– organize a workshop for industry on new business models for interactive products and services.
For Panorama,the Institute became “a point of reference for the generation of new ideas and a new design culture.” Prestinenza called Interaction Ivrea “a model for the moribund Italian educational system”. Francesco Gavazzi, in a cover story for Corriere della Sera, proclaimed that “at Ivrea, students design new ways of interaction between man and technology”.
In 2005, the Interaction Design Institute left Ivrea and moved to the new premises of Domus Academy in Milan. There, the two institutions developed devise a new Masters in Interaction Design, which started in 2006.
