WORKSHOP
FUTURE MOBILITY
THE ART OF MOBILITY
SPD Scuola Politecnica di Design, Milan
Car and Transportation Design Program
26-5 May 2017
CONTENT
The workshop aims to create an innovative vision and demonstrate its commitment to shaping the future of mobility in an urban context, emphasizing the concept of driving as an experience rooted in the journey rather than the destination. Projects will prospectively question technological and socio-cultural advancements and how these will influence the evolution of cars and their intended use to provide an immersive travel experience. Additionally, the workshop will explore design as a method of inquiry, focusing on future transportation systems and programs within the framework of a new mobile subculture. One of the primary objectives is to reflect on the multifaceted nature of mobility—its symbolic and aesthetic dimensions—and pave the way for transdisciplinary studies that are increasingly central to contemporary social and cultural dynamics.
The workshop also examines the biotic relationships between humans and machines, as well as the transformation of user interactions, enabling individuals to express their senses, emotions, and patterns within a more human-like context in future vehicles. In parallel with these explorations, projects will analyze contemporary transportation networks as habitats, artificial infrastructures, and organisms, considering their interrelations and interactions with inhabitants. The process encourages collaborative expression and synergy, incorporating emotional experiences and sensory insights to propose a profound reflection on emerging forms of mobility while addressing complex transportation and global challenges.
The Art of Mobility is a sub-topic within the workshop that aims to provide a creative space for students to generate ideas on how mobility and movement relate to the future of transportation. As part of this exploration, students will be asked to create preparatory models that strike a balance between agile and dynamic forms, capturing the essence of nature. Moreover, during the workshop, students will engage closely with one another, dissolving their individual artistry into collective creativity while exploring abstract landscapes and forms designed to inspire.
Students will be responsible for documenting and presenting the design process in their final proposals, utilizing diverse communication tools and methods as required.
THE ART OF MOBILITY
Abstract
Mobility begins with the interplay between art, culture, and movement. Reflecting on mobility today requires widening the perspective beyond the concepts of travel, discovery, and displacement; it calls for an analysis of social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena. The practice of mobility can be understood as a phenomenological experience where identity encounters alterity—a transformative journey where ideas, perceptions, and preconceptions are questioned.
AUTOPIA
Form Beyond Function
The workshop aims to generate a futuristic vision of movement, prospectively embodying the intention of exploring diverse mobility forms through an artistic lens. The Art of Mobility is an abstract theme that provides a space for students to conceptualize how mobility, movement, and motion intersect with the future of transportation design. Recognizing that daily life is inherently infused with mobility norms and patterns will help students grasp the dynamics behind consciousness, information flow, societal structures, and the passage of time. The primary purpose of this workshop is to reflect on the symbolic and artistic dimensions of mobility and pave the way for transdisciplinary studies that increasingly influence the social and cultural fabric of the contemporary world.
The workshop challenges students to envision a future beyond boundaries and enhance their creativity by exploring alternative mobility paradigms for humanity. Through the workshop, projects will encourage students to freely generate and reinterpret their ideas by developing abstract sculptures as scaled models, enabling them to articulate their design philosophies more effectively. Beyond their artistic expression, the sculptures should possess a robust yet flexible structure that facilitates exploration of diverse contexts while reflecting shared cultural codes and visual symbols of motion. The designs should embody a seamless and unified aesthetic, offering a harmonious blend of form and function.
TtansFORM + TransCAR
Life on the Move
The concepts should revolve around creating innovative modes of transportation that resonate with the driver’s mood on every level, fostering a seamless unity between humans and vehicles. Through the studies, forward-thinking approaches will push the boundaries of both practical and emotional dimensions of future mobility.
In the workshop, students will be encouraged to envision the city of tomorrow and use their creativity to develop a comprehensive vision of future mobility. Ultimately, they will produce physical, aesthetic representations of future vehicles. These sculptures aim to embody the principles of volume and proportion, translating those ideas into immersive artistic expressions. Form serves as the foundational element of every drawing and lies at the heart of any design—be it art, architecture, industrial design, or design in general.
This workshop offers a stimulating exploration of the multifaceted nature of form, inspiring the creation of diverse examples drawn from the essence of mobility. The result will be monumental sculptures that reflect the future of transportation. The concepts must delve into the intricacies of surfaces while addressing the architectural interplay between internal and external structures. The virtual aspects of these concepts will challenge a key paradigm in car design: that the highlights are no longer the focal point of the design.
DRAW + SKETCH
Essential forms to capture the moment and movement
Modern car sculpting incorporates the fundamental principles of form, structure, volume, proportion, scale, and texture. As a car design artist, the sculptures must establish life-like connections to their surroundings, featuring flowing, skin-like surfaces of speedforms that symbolize the refined vision of future vehicle design patterns. During the workshop, this will be characterized by dramatic proportions, elegant fine lines, and softly appearing yet sharply contoured surfaces. Viewing a sculpture can evoke various emotions, such as the abstract essence of a body or spirit emerging from the car being created.
In imagining new forms of future transportation, flowing random elements and continuously evolving shapes will emerge from the dynamic norms of speed and aerodynamics, transforming imagination into tangible form and expressing motion as a clear manifestation of future mobility concepts. Throughout the workshop, participants' artistic imagination will drive the creation of shapes and forms that naturally take on the essence of vehicles—sensuous structures and emotional contours reflecting respect for humanity and nature. A sculpture, in this context, becomes not just a physical object but a celebration of the art inherent in nature.
The sculptures students will be tasked to create aim to balance agile and dynamic volumes, capturing the essence of nature while envisioning what future transportation design might look like, with a focus on the human factor. Inspirations for these projects will stem from themes such as motion, future life patterns, the image of speed, conceptual transportation, modern architecture, and nature. Through a process of ideation and form development, culminating in sculptures shaped by dynamism and fluidity, this workshop seeks to propose concepts that serve as mobility solutions, immersive travel experiences, and forms of "living" in the future.
Students' creations should harmonize functional and aesthetic criteria, integrating technological innovation, quality craftsmanship, structural clarity, environmental considerations, and simplicity.
By working with various materials, the workshop aims to deepen participants' understanding and perception of design concepts as they take shape, evolving from blank paper into forms imbued with sensuousness and attention to detail. The interplay between designing, modeling, and sculpting will emphasize the creativity and intention behind the process, particularly in the context of vehicle forms. The foundational proportions of these models will challenge observers to interpret the essence of future mobility through an intense and thoughtful design process.
The sculptures will reflect nature-inspired vehicle designs, employing artistic techniques that transcend physical form to embody a spirit of dynamic and refined inner strength. The process will also explore the synergy between advanced hi-tech materials and raw natural materials, envisioning transitions between technological progression and nature. The resulting designs must strike a balance between realism and visionary aesthetics, offering creations that are stimulating, attractive, and futuristic.
ART LAB
The Making
Creating a sculpture that is both sensuous and extraordinarily dynamic transforms car design into a new artistic statement. Since car design is inherently artistic, aesthetically and sensuously oriented works will embody forms inspired by the flowing spirit of nature. The sculptures will reference the evolution of future vehicles, combining design elements with soaring shape transitions and clearly contoured lines to give them an organic appearance through a natural and intuitive process. During the workshop, students will translate artistic inspiration into contemporary examples of car design, blending dramatic proportions with harmony, style, and innovation.
Throughout the workshop, various innovative experiments will take place. Students will create state-of-the-art units to explore future mobility forms, norms, and concepts, aiming to make "life on the move" more engaging and meaningful for human beings. As the car evolves beyond a mere form of transport, students are encouraged to think beyond traditional automotive design, generating ideas that extend beyond metal sculptures and default packages. This innovative process will foster new dialogues, multiple narratives, and speculative thinking about the future of mobility.
The abstract forms must connect to the future of mobility through their sculptural volumes, use of advanced technological materials, and visual lightness, all of which are central to the design philosophy. During the studies, students will explore how form can emphasize light and dynamic volumes through symbolic and aesthetic contexts. Additionally, they will investigate how motion and form interact to amplify sensory experiences, reflecting a seamless transition between the vehicle and its environment.
ANTROPOMORPHISM AND MECHANOMORPHISM
The Two Faces of the Human
This workshop also delves into the ambiguity of the “human machine.” Mechanomorphism—the attribution of machine characteristics to humans—is a culturally derived metaphor that currently dominates the cognitive sciences. The interplay between anthropomorphism and mechanomorphism poses a compelling question for future car designers: “Can machines feel?”
As we drive, we perceive colors, hear sounds, and feel textures through distinct senses. This workshop aims to draw out the essence of driving by exploring the unseen and unknown interactions between humans and machines. The abstract nature and experimental approach of the workshop are intended to reflect future configurations and patterns that foster a deeper connection between humans and machines, enhancing attachment to cars both physically and psychologically.
Cars serve as interfaces of interaction between humans and their environment. In this context, the workshop seeks to generate new impacts and dynamics in car design, paving the way for innovative relationships between people, machines, and the world around them.
Extended Content
THE BODY, THE MONSTER, THE MACHINE
Fırat Akova, Poedat Conference 2015, Istanbul, Turkey
''The endeavor to define the ontological limit of the human body has long intersected philosophical, biological, and theological pursuits, presenting a captivating quest. Beyond innocent epistemological discussions, differentiating between the body and the out-of-body—along with immanence, which seeks to explain the human through insulating patterns—has evolved into a detrimental habit, a metaphysical tradition, and even an oppressive ideology. Immanence, while striving to place the body under the hegemony of a causal, rational, and figural order, gains notoriety for neglecting the explicit, relational, and transformative qualities it tries to constrain within its imposed limits. Historically, immanence has been perpetuated through discourse, politics, and aesthetics via the dual concepts of “monster” and "machine," despite the reality that the body's boundaries can expand to align with the limits of being. In truth, the body incessantly dismantles the crude borders imposed upon it through its inherent zoneness—an interactive, exchange-driven, and evolving process.
The monster emerges as an unusual, formidable, and distorted concept. Morphological errors are exclusively ascribed to the monster; hence, what the monster is, the human is not. The boundaries imposed on the body thrive and evolve through the image of the monster. When subjected to a Foucauldian analysis, the scientific categorization of the monster—enabled by deeper examinations involving cells, animals, and objects—reveals the emergence of "normalization." Science, particularly in the wake of teratology and modernism, has extended this concept of normalization to bodies initially constrained by immanence. The desire for order, with its physiological and sociological reflections, justifies the limits placed on the human body, standing in stark contrast to imagination. Francisco Goya aptly links imagination with ‘the sleep of reason,’ suggesting that it releases monsters and ushers them into liberated zones. Myths of gods and goddesses in Asia and hybrid creatures in Africa reflect a longstanding, intergenerational, and dizzying interplay with the concept of the monster.
Similarly, the machine is abruptly categorized as distinct from the body and is often employed as a metaphor to diminish the bodiliness of the human form. When the body is perceived theologically—functioning as a vehicle for something external—it is often likened to a machine. In this perspective, the body's limits are confined, retracting from the potential expansiveness of being to the narrower boundaries of the machine. Georges Canguilhem, referencing Giorgio Baglivi’s De Praxi Medica, illustrates this point: likening body parts such as the stomach, veins, and muscles to devices like a retort, hydraulic tubes, and cords demonstrates how the body, in serving a goal, is reduced to an instrument for ideologies that exalt technique. It is no coincidence that Aristotle referred to the bodies of slaves as "animated machines," or that René Descartes laid the groundwork for mechanical philosophy at the dawn of capitalism. Similarly, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, who argue that consulting a notebook is no different from consulting consciousness to access knowledge, exemplify a seminal trend that reimagines the machine using the terminology of the body, contrasting with the classical approach that mechanizes the human form.
The fact that all elements, processes, and impacts of the body are reflected in the entirety of being creates an extraordinary sense of adventure, evoking cosmological awe. The body is simultaneously cause and effect, subject and object, the beginning and the end of a finiteness whose limits remain undefined. Thus, the body transcends the reductive notion of an input-output system relegated to the out-of-body illusion. Instead, it is a temporal and spatial fluctuation—a structure capable of consciously or unconsciously penetrating the universal cluster called "being," which encompasses all things. The natural outcome of the relationship between the body and being is this: while the body is not equivalent to being, the limits of being are also the limits of the body.''
METHODOLOGIES
Beginning with brainstorming, the concepts will follow different methodological steps outlined below. These steps, derived from a variety of creative experiences, aim to gather new information and evolve the design process.
• Problem Tree: A tool for clarifying the problems addressed by a design project. It involves creating a structured hierarchy of issues, identifying higher-level problems and their underlying causes.
• Mind Map: A diagram used to represent a range of ideas or concepts. By using images, symbols, or words for nodes, selecting keywords, and analyzing information and relationships, it aids in visualizing connections.
• Storyboard: A form of scripting that communicates each step of activities, experiences, or interactions. This involves crafting a narrative that defines the story and the users involved.
• Moodboard: A collage of images and words, including samples of forms, colors, and textures, to convey the emotional tone of the intended design. The collage may incorporate abstract images, objects, materials, structures, and interactions to collect and analyze stories.
• Concept Sketch: A quick freehand drawing. Individual designers create sketches and present their ideas to the group for feedback and collaboration.
• Cognitive Map: A mental representation of an environment, capturing how people remember and recall physical or virtual spaces and their spatial experiences.
• Paper Prototyping: A quick and cost-effective method to gain insights by simulating functionality without focusing on aesthetics. It emphasizes content, form, and structure.
• Scaled Prototype: A detailed prototype resembling the finished product, which may include functional elements. This stage involves testing the design and evaluating the outcomes.
• User Experience (Group Work): Documenting and visualizing users’ experiences and their responses to these interactions, providing valuable feedback for refining the design.
OBJECTIVES
• Introduce the structures of car design through a multidisciplinary approach encompassing architecture, urban design, material engineering, ergonomics, product design, and performance, with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability and social awareness. This includes consideration of technological and production constraints.
• Integrate the design process into new experiential concepts, redefine the architectural structures of cars, and establish new criteria for efficiency and future responsibilities.
• Complement theoretical and conceptual training with studio projects, progressing from initial design concepts to their refinement and digital modeling.
• Explore micro and macro mobility systems that respond to emerging urban typologies. Question the current transportation and vehicle design paradigms to address environmental challenges, global economic trends, and evolving social structures.
• Observe progressive transportation concepts that challenge traditional mobility scenarios, envisioning futures where cars are no longer the primary actors.
• Foster awareness and sensitivity toward the future by expanding the ability to select and apply appropriate design research methods for well-considered, abstract explorations.
OUTCOMES
• Develop an understanding of how to transfer research insights into various projects within car and transportation design.
• Gain familiarity with key steps in the design process, including hypothetical discussions, debriefing, and project conceptualization, informed by case studies of future mobility scenarios, design evolutions, and analyses of social structures, art, and architectural inspirations.
• Reflect a comprehensive understanding of transportation design history and its evolution. This knowledge will complement theoretical and practical design methodologies, vehicle architecture, and technological developments shaped by broader mobility trends, especially within car culture.
• Encourage creative thinking beyond conventional constraints and promote a process-driven approach. Emphasize the importance of time management and continuous progression in conceptual projects.
• Structure projects using a variety of techniques, including collages, diagrams, storyboards, prototypes, simulations, videos, photography, and other tools to effectively communicate ideas.
• Cultivate flexibility to challenge existing typologies and integrate these explorations into the research process, ensuring outcomes inform not only the final project but also the overall learning journey.
REQUIREMENTS
For the final project, students will be required to submit a separate folder illustrating the development process and final stage of their work. This should present how ideas and concepts were transformed and embedded into the final project and demonstrate how the final project addresses the given context, particularly in relation to inconsistencies and discrepancies. Additionally, a logbook containing notes, sketches, visuals, and references, along with a final prototype, will be presented.
Criteria
Students are expected to thoroughly document and present the design process in their final proposals. This includes employing various design, documentation, and communication tools and methods such as drafting, sketching, digital modeling, physical modeling, prototyping, video, sound, mapping, and other relevant techniques as necessary.
Statement
A separate folder must be submitted to illustrate the project's development and how it reached its final stage.
Presentation
Students must be able to effectively explain and discuss their project using various presentation tools. This should include detailed discussions of contextual, functional, technical, aesthetic, and social aspects.
Conceptualization
The submission must demonstrate how ideas and concepts evolved and materialized throughout the process and how they were integrated into the final project.
Finishing
The final project must go beyond material outputs, such as drawings or prototypes, to show how it thoughtfully engages with the given context and addresses identified inconsistencies and discrepancies.
Submissions
• Logbook: Includes drafts, research, notes, critiques, visuals, and references.
• Sketchbook: A4 or larger, documenting the design process.
• Final Prototype: A working or scaled model.
• User Scenarios: Detailed visualizations of user interactions.
• Transportation System Illustration: Depicts the proposed system, network, and paradigm, demonstrating how the project is adapted and positioned.
• Material Details: Provide detailed information about materials, energy sources, and manufacturing processes, as required.
Evaluation
Projects will be assessed based on the following criteria:
• User Factor Analysis: Consideration of user needs and interactions.
• Comfort: Ergonomic and practical usability.
• Emotional and Ecological Sensitivity: Responsiveness to human and environmental concerns.
• Creativity and Originality: Innovation and unique approaches.
• Reflection of the Future: Relevance to future-oriented design paradigms.
• Relevance to the Brief: Alignment with project requirements and goals.
• Design Quality: Excellence in conceptual and material execution.
• Presentation: Clarity, organization, and effectiveness of the final presentation.
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