The Casa IED 2026 program officially begins this year in celebration of IED’s 60th anniversary with a new conference series titled Plural Intelligences. Across seven monthly conversations, the series will explore how intelligence today is increasingly plural, embodied, and collective — emerging through relationships between people, disciplines, technologies, and environments. The first talk took place on February 19, with Giorgia Lupi, internationally acclaimed information designer and Partner at Pentagram, known for her pioneering work in data visualization and visual storytelling.
The next talk will feature Cecilia Alemani, Chief Curator of High Line Art, on Tuesday, March 10. Additional speakers and dates to be announced.
Casa IED opened Nov. 6, 2025 in New York, the first of the spaces that the Istituto Europeo di Design is dedicating to cultural exchange and creating synergies between designers and the local context, in a place symbolic of global connections. Casa IED is a place of coexistence, collaboration and creating together: a community united by a shared culture of design. The Istituto Europeo di Design chose to launch Casa IED in New York, in partnership with Salotto (salotto.nyc): a hub of Italian creatives based in Brooklyn and gathered in the loft at 84 Withers St. Both organisations share a common commitment to design and community, along with the origins of Salotto itself, which was founded by a group of designers, including IED alumni Gabriel Zangari (Design Executive) and Emiliano Ponzi (Illustrator and visual artist).
The Istituto Europeo di Design, a Benefit Corporation owned by the non-profit Francesco Morelli Foundation, which works to promote design as a driver of social progress, opens Casa IED as a new model for “giving back” knowledge to the community. Through a public programme open to all, featuring meetings, panels, lectures, and workshops, Casa IED becomes an arena for dialogue, exchange, and, ultimately, social transformation.
“IED is a network of schools founded on the plurality of voices and on relationships with the local context. A rich system consisting of seats, Chapter Alumni in large cities, and local communities. This system is strengthened by the addition of Casa IED: a new component designed to engage with the local context, enrich the IED community, share knowledge, and sustain a connection with collective intelligence. Casa IED allows us to foster this exchange so we can continue to be enriched by new voices and, therefore, new forms of intelligence”, says Riccardo Balbo, Chief Academic Officer IED Group.
Salotto brings together fourteen Italian designers based in New York and is dedicated to diverse forms of creativity. It is a collective where design, graphics, video, film, illustration, and digital media are integrated, driving innovation. Today, Salotto is not just a co-working space where imagination leads to concrete projects and visions, but also a place for research and cultural gathering, around which unconventional events revolve. A space created to connect ideas and build relationships; a place where NYC meets the new generation of Italian art and design professionals. Gabriel Zangari, in addition to being an alumnus of IED Milan with a 2004 diploma in Industrial Design, also leads IED’s first Alumni Chapter: the local network of alumni living in New York. From New York, he shares news and events as well as his expertise in systemic design.
Inaugurating Casa IED’s public programme on Thursday, 6 November, was a talk on the theme of plural intelligence with Riccardo Balbo and Nicolas Heller. The latter is an advertising director and documentary filmmaker known to over 3 million followers as @newyorknico for his talent in telling authentic stories and creating narratives through a multiplicity of contributions and voices. Heller has directed campaigns for major brands, blending cinematic aesthetics with storytelling and demonstrating a unique talent for casting unconventional faces. His new documentary, 26.2, dedicated to New York City marathon runners, has just become available.
The launch of the Plural Intelligences talk series marks the start of a broader U.S. presence for IED, with much more to come –– including continued participation in WantedDesign and the ICFF program, design school collaborations, and deeper connections with IED’s Italy and Spain campuses. In addition, plans are underway for the 2026 Glitch Camp, a campground in central Milan offering housing and programming for young designers during Milan Design Week. Details for the application process, open to NA students, will be announced in the coming months.
IED | ISTITUTO EUROPEO DI DESIGN
IED is an international Group, the largest European Network of Art and Design schools to have maintained a global outlook and a deeply Italian cultural matrix, since 1966. IED is a network that spanning with 11 campuses over 3 countries, Italy, Spain and Brazil and with 1 cultural Hub in New York. In Italy IED works through the parent company. In 2022 it was transformed into a Benefit Company, to formalize a positive impact on society and on the planet. IED is an inclusive, transdisciplinary school that uses design as a universal language for change.
Every year, IED launches innovative educational projects in the fields of study of Design, Fashion, Communication and Management, Film, Arts and Restoration and Visual Arts, developing forms of learning and new models for interpreting the future.
The IED Group’s educational offer includes Undergraduate courses (Diploma Accademico di I° Livello – DAPL, Título de Grado en Enseñanzas Artísticas Superiores de Diseño – TGEAS, Diploma de Bacharelado, Bachelor of Arts Hons – BAHons, Ciclos Formativos de Grado Superior and IED Certificate), Postgraduate courses (Diploma Accademico di II° Livello – DASL, Master di Primo Livello, Master IED, Postgrado, Pós-Graduação and Dottorato di Ricerca – PhD) and Lifelong Learning courses. IED relies on a network of more than 3.000 lecturers, active in their respective fields of reference, with whom it collaborates continuously to ensure the perfect performance of the training activities of its locations.