New visions in car design
Designing cars is tricky business. Not only do designers have to comply with strict safety regulations, they are also restricted by company guidelines be it in terms of budget or aesthetics. Which is why college years are the best, and possibly the last ones, for them to explore freely. At this year’s Royal College of Art graduate vehicle design show students exhibited a number of inspiring ideas. This London post-graduate college provides the... Read More
BMW electric i store
The world’s population is moving to cities on a scale never seen before and the burgeoning megacities simply demands a new approach to mobility. Admittedly it has been revealing witnessing how carmakers have reacted to this. Some have put their hearts and souls into it; others have sat quietly on the fence waiting to see how the story unfolds. BMW is amongst the former group. This is a company with engineering at its core and it makes sense... Read More
Jerrycan inspires e-bike
One+ is an intriguing concept. Vehicle designer Fernando Ocana has created a conceptual electric bike designed specifically to transport clean water from place to place in the developing world. The lead designer at pioneering electric car company Think, Ocana’s design is an unusual electric motorcycle inspired by the simplicity of the bicycle so that it is simple to produce and easy to maintain. #gallery-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-3... Read More
Car design trends from Geneva
The Geneva Motor Show is one of the main yearly international exhibitions that tend to focus primarily on design studies and future trends. This year, sadly, the displays were generally of ‘real’ cars – automobiles that are made for today’s world but tend to lack the visionary insight to make them relevant to the bigger picture of mobility. This is a real shame as for the last few years we have been teased with a promise of a future... Read More
Meet ASIMO the humanoid robot
The car industry is full of contradictions. On the one hand it creates machines that are harming our planet, yet some of the most innovative sustainability thinking takes place behind the the closed doors of some of these companies. Last month we flew to Japan to visit Honda. Founded in 1948, this is Japan’s third carmaker and the world’s largest producer of motorcycles. It is also one of the leaders when it comes to ecological thinking as... Read More
Jacob Jensen’s coffin design
Coffin design isn’t something that we come across everyday, which is why the news that Danish firm Jacob Jensen Design has ventured into this area came as a bit of a surprise. After all, the funeral industry is a rather traditional one, and a delicate one to tackle. Working alongside coffin manufacturer Tommerup Kister, the Diamant Series has been designed, in the words of company director Timothy Jacob Jensen, to be more like ‘the next home... Read More
New voices at London Design Festival
Around the corner from the main V&A London Design Festival hub, students at the Royal College of Art hosted a series of exhibitions at their South Kensington campus. Sustain showcased sustainable objects, ecological thinking and solutions from across the art and design disciplines. Vehicle design student Robert Hagenstrom’s Bamboo Utility Vehicle, for instance, is both ecologically and socially sustainable. It promotes people in... Read More
Shared transport: Two conflicting views
In our increasingly urbanised world, finding innovative and practical solutions for shared transport systems makes complete sense. Here emerging designers from the Royal College of Art present their very different propositions. #gallery-8 { margin: auto; } #gallery-8 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-8 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-8... Read More
Show RCA: Young architects’ future vision
Emerging architects are faced with real issues that demand some innovative thinking. Here three young designers from the Royal College of Art in London explain how they hope to make change with their graduate show projects. #gallery-9 { margin: auto; } #gallery-9 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-9 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-9... Read More
Interior solution: Family Dynamic
‘Current car interiors reinforce 1950s family dynamics with dad as boss and everyone else sitting there doing nothing. This is not how the modern family works nor is it the way we interact with one another in the home environment,’ says former Lego designer Adam Phillips. He is presenting Family Dynamic an interior design concept that expresses the needs of the modern family. Designed as part of his graduate project in vehicle design at... Read More