|
|
Mar 20, 2006 – The success story of Nokia design is well known worldwide, but Finnish vehicle design is not so well known. Despite the absence of major domestic car companies, in recent years Finland has produced a number of vehicle designers now working in the design studios of companies all over the world. Most of them originate from the Department of Industrial Design in the Institute of Design at Lahti Polytechnic that has for many years offered special courses on vehicle design. These graduates have continued their studies at Masters level abroad, mostly at the Royal College of Art in London.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Department of Industrial Design, a seminar and exhibition on vehicle design was organized in Lahti. The seminar took place in October 2005, focusing on the entire life cycle of vehicles, from the board of a designer to the recycling of the components. The list of speakers included two former design students of Lahti and RCA: Heikki Naulapää from Provoke Design Oy, who formerly worked for Aprilia motorcycles and Pasi Pennanen, Assistant Chief Designer of Honda Advanced Design in Tokyo. Eero Miettinen, Group Design Director of Nokia, formerly also a car designer himself, acted as the spokesperson of the seminar.
The Stance exhibition consisted of three parts. Firstly, vehicle design projects by the students of the Institute of Design were shown as 2D presentations. Secondly, a number of final works and current projects by the Finnish vehicle designers were on display in the form of scale models and images. Selected design works of Finnish car and heavy vehicle industry were also exhibited. In many of the displayed concepts, design themes and inspiration were stemming from the Finnish culture and nature. This background was not only explicitly visible in some material choices and form characteristics, but also implicitly apparent in many concepts, making them interestingly distinctive.
|
|
Jaguar F-Type interior by Pasi Pennanen
|
As David Ahmad, a tutor from the RCA, suggested in his presentation, Finnish students, when entering RCA, have been well prepared to face the great challenges of the vehicle design world. So it seems that, even though vehicle design education does not have a strong history in Finland, the results have been successful. Stance was the first such event on car design ever organised in Finland but, according to the organisers, there are plans to make it a regular event.
Lahti Polytechnic Institute of Design website: www.lamk.fi/engl/mi
|
