1. Alessi: Family Follows Fiction
Brixen, September 15, 2006

2. Agenda Company overview Open innovation process
Process structure
Centro Studi Alessi: gatekeeper
Importance of external designers
A breakthrough innovation: Family Follows Fiction
Concept
Actor Network theory (ANT)
Application of the ANT

3. The corkscrew Anna G., the bottle opener Diabolix, the eggcup Cico and the famous lemon squeezer Juicy Salif designed by Philippe Starck for Alessi.

4. Company history
In 1921 Giovanni Alessi bought a plot of land at Omegna and founded Alessi
The company started to develop a design style of its own only during the thirties, when Carlo Alessi joined the company
In the early seventies Alberto Alessi, Carlo’s son, started since the beginning of his career in Alessi to deal with new-products development, marketing and communication
In subsequent years several other designers started to collaborate with Alessi: Coppola, Grignani, Tovaglia, Confalonieri, Sottsass, Sapper, Rossi, Castiglioni, Mari, Starck, Graves, etc.
The end of the nineties marks Alessi's last evolution. The "dream factory" has become a research laboratory in the field of applied arts

5. Economic figures
Nowadays the company employs about 500 people, who are directly involved in project development, production, sales and distribution
Turnover around 100 million euro
Alessi is exporting the 65% of its turnover to over 60 countries
5000 points of sale, 14 Alessi stores (Showroom and Flagship), 175 Shop in shop
Alessi headquarters bears the mark of the Atelier Mendini
The Alessi company has recently obtained an exclusive concession by Fiera Milano, an entire pavilion inside the “exhibition centre”

6. Open innovation process
Process fundamentally based on creativity and on long-lasting strict personal relationships between Alessi and its external designers
Homogeneous set of organizational routines through which each new project is conceived, evaluated and its essential ‘design philosophy’ maintained
Metaproject -> Brief
Workshop -> Evaluation & “Desiderata”
Engineering
CONTINUOUS RESEARCH
META-PROJECT
WORKSHOP
ENGINEERING
Evaluation & Desiderata
Knowledge about socio-cultural trends
Brief

7. Centro Studi Alessi: the gatekeeper
Centro Studi Alessi (CSA) was conceived at the end of the 80s from an idea of Alberto Alessi, Alessandro Mendini and Laura Polinoro
CSA pursued the need to experiment new ways and methodology to design in order to work with young designers with a fresh approach

8. Centro Studi Alessi: the gatekeeper
Research provides theoretical foundations for the elaboration of the concept on which the metaproject will be based
The Metaproject defines the typologies of objects to design, collects the company's needs, and gives the esthetical criteria as well as the cultural and visual stimuli to the designers
Through the Workshop the metaproject is elaborated and ideas exchanged with the selected designers and the technical team of Alessi
The first two operations - metaprojects conceptualized and coordinated by Laura Polinoro for CSA were: "Memory Containers" and "Family Follows Fiction - FFF"
Il processo è strutturato in modo da poter captare dall’esterno stimoli e conoscenza
Sottolinerare Workshop come momento di integrazione/condivisione/sviluppo
CSA come gatekeeper
Conoscenza arriva dall’esterno

9. Importance of external designers
Name
Country of Origin
Born
1st Alessi collaboration
Ettore Sottsass
Italy
1917
1976
Alessandro Mendini
1931
1977
Richard Sapper
Germany
1932
1979
Aldo Rossi
1931 (deceased 1997)
1980
Achille Castiglioni
1918 (deceased 2002)
1982
Micheal Graves
United States
1934
1985
Stefano Giovannoni
1954
1986
Philippe Starck
France
1949
Guido Venturini
1957
Enzo Mari
1989
Frank Gehry
Canada
1929
1992
Marco Zanuso
1916
1995
George Sowden
United Kingdom
1942
1997
Ron Arad
Israel
1951
1998
Sir Norman Foster
1935
Jasper Morrison
1959
Marc Newson
Australia
1963
1999
Alessi’s Maestros, in 2003 Alessi listed, among others, the following designers in its catalogue and on its website (Moon Y, Dessain V and Sjöman A. Alessi: Evolution of an Italian Design Factory (B). Harvard Business School, 2004)

10. Family Follows Fiction
Alessi stimulated a group of designers to explore the creative potential of plastics, that they had not probably considered designing for Alessi in the past, due to the company’s focus on steel products and technologies
Products that satisfied user experiences such as, the need for tenderness, delicacy and intimacy. They felt the need to shake off their parameters

11. Actor Network Theory (ANT)
Sociology (‘80s)
Principal references
Callon M, Law J and Rip A (1986). Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World, Macmillan Press, London.
Latour B (1986). Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands, in Knowledge and Society: Studies in Sociology of Culture Past and Present, 6, pp
Latour B (1987). Science in Action, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Bijker W.E., Law J., Shaping Technology/ Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge, Massachusetts/ London, England: The MIT Press, pp
Principal concepts
Actant (human and not human)
Network
Meaning

12. Fonte: Tesi di laurea “Actor Network Theory: un nuovo approccio per l’analisi di innovazioni design driven. Applicazione ai casi di Alessi, Apple e Kartell” di Erica Loviso