Editor’s note: This listing was updated on December 2, 2002
Overview
In one of the global capitals of design – and the home of the mecca that is Salone del Mobile – students of Domus Academy are surrounded by inspiration. This is a major part of the school’s appeal, and an enduring challenge for enrollees to “create disruptive concepts and envision the future through possible and impossible scenarios.”
As Mark Anderson, the Academy’s Director of Education, explains, the school “combines inquiry and experiential learning components in an atelier-like environment.” At both the Master’s and more intensive Double Award Master’s level (for UK accreditation), the Interaction Design program centres on rigorous workshops, which are bolstered by seminars, lectures, tutorials and fieldwork. Students can choose to either do an internship within a company – brands that have partnered with Domus include Cisco, Fondazione Achille Castiglioni, Kickstarter and Illimity Bank – or work on a project on campus in collaboration with a company, thereby completing an entrepreneurship module.
Achille’s Journal is an online platform created by Domus Academy interaction design students to link Fondazione Achille Castiglioni to the outside world, bringing the studio outside its walls.
In either case, they make the valuable connections that result in the school’s over-90-percent placement rate. Alumni have gone on to pursue careers in interaction design, user experience design, digital design, design research, creative technology, and branding and marketing consulting.
Notable Alumni
Pietro Turi (Condé Nast), Ekene Ijeoma (MIT Media Lab) and Studio Ijeoma, Julie Blitzer (Bain & Company), Mauro D’Alessandro (Tesco), Andrea Piccolo (Innovation By Design), Jonning Chng (Adidas)
Notable faculty
Nima Gazestani, Andrea Pedrina and Michele Aquila (program leader)
