ABOUT // Premised /

TEAMWORK DESIGNS THE FUTURE // Design, industrial area and Cnavese Connexion. /

Canavese Connexion is based on a Design Gang Network idea championed by the City of Ivrea - with the backing of the Regione Piemonte and the Chamber of Commerce. This project promotes design by regenerating the Canavese industrial area and its network of small and medium-sized businesses.
The underlying concept is to exploit the potential of design to upgrade firms and reposition them in the global production market.

Situated in north-west Piedmont, the city of Ivrea is the pulsating heart of the Canavese industrial area. Up until the 1980s, local development was based on the excellent examples of Olivetti and FIAT. This model came under strain in the late 1990s, when the Olivetti network collapsed and the Lancia plants in Chivasso closed. Fortunately, the downturn was limited, partly thanks to the stability of the minor industries.
The "One-Company Town" model was abandoned in favour of a subdivision of the production fabric and a network of small and medium-sized companies specialising in several sectors.
In the 1970s, small and medium-sized companies absorbed 30% of the workforce but, today, there are more than 500 businesses employing 65% of the working population. One distinguishing feature of the Canavese area is its varied specialist production in manufacturing sectors such as iron and steel, metallurgy, mechanics, hot-pressed steel and plastics, as well as hi-tech and IT.
Many of these production situations remain, however, linked to a single commodity sector. Although this has favoured the specialisation of company know-how, it has also bound the future of the individual companies to trends in a single reference market. Canavese Connexion was conceived to address this issue and to promote and upgrade the area. In fact, design has been identified as the keystone of the future development and renewed competitiveness of Italian production and businesses on the world market.

A competition was held with a jury comprising Design Gang Network, the City of Ivrea, Confindustria Canavese and Torino 2008 World Design Capital to select ten work teams, each formed of a professional designe , a design student from a leading Piedmontese institute and a Canavese company. Each team developed new products far removed from the company’s core business that would alter and upgrade its production but based on technology already in the company’s possession. The design phase started in March 2008 and the companies began making prototypes after the creative proposals had been developed. Over the next six months, each team produced one or more products.
The prototypes, all strictly made in Italy, were presented at twin exhibitions in Ivrea and Turin, as part of the Torino 2008 World Design Capital calendar.

IVREA and the Canavese: l'area d'intervento del progetto.