Monday, September 20, 2010

Image courtesy Royal College of Art

Image courtesy Royal College of Art
Joonas Vartola’s “Iomega” isn’t so much a car as a “relaxation capsule” with a chauffeur. Vartola says the shape of a swan inspired the exterior. Driver and passengers sit in separate compartments, which “fosters the idea of this being a passenger car rather than the usual driver’s car architecture,” the Finnish designer says.


“I’m thinking about a new way of consuming cars,” says Italian designer Ilaria Sacco, by allowing a high level of personalization. She calls the car “My Lounge,” and it takes an Ikea approach to design by allowing buyers to pick everything that goes into it, “like how you would design your living room.” (Hex wrench not included.)
Paul Howse wanted to offer a new definition of luxury and exclusivity with “Enigma.” It’s an electric vehicle that ideally would get its power from the sun, and the passenger compartment uses magnetic levitation to isolate it from the rest of the car.
Image courtesy Royal College of Art 
Raquel Aparicio Lopez’s “Soft Vehicle” is made of foam. You stash your stuff in a boot, er, trunk that opens with a zipper and you climb in through “a sensual slit” and sit in a seat surrounded by impact absorbing “jelly balls.” The Spanish designer believes softer cars are safer cars. “I would like to extrapolate rubber, textile and other soft materials into vehicle design,” she says.Sergio Loureiro Da Silva designed “Phoenix” for maximum efficiency. There’s a turbine up front, a kinetic axis — whatever that is — and electric motors at the back. The Spanish designer likens the vehicle to a motorcycle with a sidecar, but it looks to us like something you’d see in a pod race on Tattooine.

Image courtesy Royal College of Art
 
un Woo Jeong’s “Transform” might be the offspring of an unholy marriage between Optimus Prime and a Morgan. It has a transparent elastic top that can be stretched to any shape to suit the driver’s needs and mood. “I’ve been interested in ‘transformables’ since I was a boy,” says Jeong. “It is common to boys across the world. How many transformable robots have passed over our memories? Why do they generate so much enthusiasm? Some say it’s childish. But I assume it is human instinct

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