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'One Piece' by Ettiene Salome uses rapid prototyping to ursurp current industriial processes. The project shows how the slow pace of automotive manufacturing could metamorphose with new technologies, with interior design becoming as contemporary and trend-setting as fashion design.
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Future vehicle designers would be able to quickly explore a wider variety of smaller markets as is done in the fashion industry. Rapid prototyping allows the production of mouldable and rigid parts within the same piece, while its digital foundation allows it to be easily reproduced and customized. Emphasis is placed more on the software and digital development, than on the physical volume constraints of existing processes.
Jacobo Dominguez Ojea presented 'Membrana', a concept which explores the control of light in interiors, and a bold graphic exterior theme. The external surface layer of the vehicle is a plastic panel attached to a transparent shell, thus defining the cars volume. The outer plastic panel is laser-cut to the customers preferred design, and acts as a membrane that controls the degree of light permitted inside, and as a privacy filter. Because the customers decide their own external appearance - and consequently the interior atmosphere - the car becomes personal and unique, and thus exclusive.
The RCA Vehicle Design department aims to develop the student's creative, intellectual and critical potential. Dale Harrow, head of the Vehicle Design department, explains: "Our fundamental aims are to provide a learning environment that stimulates students to go beyond their expectations and become first class designers. Research abilities, understanding the future implications of their designs, and taking social responsibility for their work are essential elements of a Vehicle Design student's journey."
The MA curriculum is structured around three pathways:
Urban Flow - concentrating on providing advanced inclusive mobility, moving people and/or goods within specific urban environments, improving vehicles and systems.
Inside Out - Focussing on the vehicles materials, production and manufacturing technologies, considering in particular the functional design of vehicle interface with the user.
Automark - exploring strategic design solutions, creating innovative vehicle concepts that provide significant value to a business, identifying and creating new commercial and brand potential.
As ever the Royal College of Art degree show presented a broad spectrum of project types and accomplished work. Relative to other car design courses the Vehicle Design MA places emphasis on a creative and intellectual approach to the design process and not the resolution of the final deliverables, which was perhaps evident in the model quality more than in the project backgrounds presented. The three 'pathways' that the course streams students into ensured a collective depth and breadth of study not so evident on other car design courses, but seemed to have had little bearing on the work presented by the individual students within each pathway.
With its heritage, central London location, exceptional resources, broad variety of students from many different countries and professional backgrounds, and now with students studying for both MPhil and PhD qualifications within the MA studio environment, the Vehicle Design MA at the RCA continues to offer one of the most attractive packages to the prospective car design student. Expect many of this years graduating students to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors and climb to some of the highest positions in automotive design.
Related stories:
College Exhibition: Royal College of Art Show 2004
Royal College of Art website: www.rca.ac.uk
