WORKSHOP
FUTURE MOBILITY
THE PARALLEL CAR
SPD Scuola Politecnica di Design, Milan
Car and Transportation Design Program
7–12 April 2019
CONTENT
Conceptual Foundations and Future Practices of Car Design
Car: Intangibility of Motion. Abstraction of the Body. Mechanical Humanity
Experience in Motion, in Every Scenario
Car: Active Energy Experiment. Personal Declaration. A Holistic Medium
The primary objective of this workshop is to develop a car (or vehicle) design project by extending its existing conceptual practices and establishing its future foundations. The process seeks to explore how car design can and must evolve in response to changes in our social, technical, and functional contexts.
As part of this effort, we value diverse perspectives, maintaining conceptual and thematic openness regarding the functions and areas of engagement. Considering both contemporary and historical challenges in car design, several key issues arise:
• The need for a more connected man-machine interaction and better-developed car architecture, redirecting design practices to enhance user experiences.
• A post-industrial future that necessitates a shift in car design from focusing solely on use and the user to delving into deeper patterns of form and function, addressing context on a broader scale.
• Connected technologies that are reshaping how things are created and shared, even serving as new infrastructures for design.
• A new car design paradigm that must navigate complexity beyond traditional styling, embracing emerging challenges.
The workshop aims to investigate what the car could become through practical and functional design experiments that materialize imaginative and purposeful design futures. Progressive and inclusive perspectives are essential for developing the conceptual foundations and future practices of car design.
This workshop contributes to advancing these perspectives, fostering meaningful dialogue with the world, and promoting designs that make a tangible difference. By interacting with society, we aim to enhance both the functional performance and the understanding of car design.
SUBJECTS
To Effectively Get People From A to B
Car: Can It Be a Documentary?
Collaborative Expression, Still or in Motion
Car: Life on the Move. Mobile Revolution
Future User. More Than Driver: In Mind
Car: Visually Appealing. Integrated into the Urban Environment. Adaptive, Flexible, and Transformable
The car is undergoing a transformative phase, gaining increased capabilities and intelligence through smart networking and communication solutions. Evidence suggests that in the future, mobility will extend beyond the traditional car to encompass diverse forms of transport. This shift will necessitate a new architecture for vehicles and innovative packaging systems to support these advancements. The evolving role of the car in society will also create opportunities for other forms of individual mobility in leaner, lighter, and more efficient ways.
Therefore, during the process, projects will be analyzed through architectural, functional, aesthetic, technological, cultural, social, environmental, and sustainability lenses.
Moving beyond the constraints of current car typologies, which are often designed with rigid, pre-established mindsets, this approach seeks to blend functionality with maximum customization, better adaptation, and enhanced integration between human and machine. Cars will not only be considered as mechanical entities but also as sensuous and semiotic archetypes. Studies will be evaluated within the context of open platforms that are modular, transformable, programmable, flexible, and adaptable—reimagining the car around user needs and accessibility, allowing people to dedicate more time to what truly matters.
Additionally, significant innovations in material construction will play a crucial role in achieving the final outcomes. Blurring the boundaries between car interiors and exteriors will take center stage, aiming to create natural and intuitive experiences for users.
During the workshop, new car architectures will be explored using advanced design methodologies such as modularity, adjustability, and flexibility, alongside emerging technologies like self-transformation, self-healing, self-programming, and self-shaping materials. These innovations will help adapt the car’s morphology to meet diverse user needs. Ultimately, activating the concept of "life on the move" will demonstrate how future car designs can transform everyday lives by integrating seamlessly into the intersections of car, architecture, and urban platforms, while responding to human senses, emotions, and patterns.
The workshop also aims to propose new structural and symbolic typologies, as well as aesthetic values, for future cars to empower users and enhance their interactions with their surroundings.
DESIGN ASSESMENT
Future
With the right setting and opportunity, we can begin shaping a better world.
Design
A purposeful tool that allows us to blend form and function to express our desires effectively.
This project will monitor the evolving relationship between humans and machines, addressing the potential changes needed for a conceptual yet functional paradigm of future car design.
It aims to generate a car design project and reinterpretations tailored to the diverse needs of users in urban contexts, while evaluating the transportation network as both a habitat and an organism.
By embracing the interrelations and qualities of various vehicles, the project seeks to improve their interactions with urban inhabitants.
It aspires to redefine the structural and symbolic characteristics, as well as the aesthetic values of cars, situating them within the dynamic intersection of architecture and the urban environment.
The focus will be on analyzing the elements that could shape the future of mobility, prioritizing connectivity, efficiency, and functionality.
Employing new car design methodologies, the project challenges the conventional architecture of cars to introduce innovative designs capable of adapting their morphology to users’ diverse needs.
It will also explore transforming man-machine interfaces to enhance physical and emotional connections between users and their vehicles.
The vision includes developing cars as intelligent devices capable of acting independently and providing meaningful information.
A central task is to envision how connectivity and digitalization will revolutionize modern car design.
The project will investigate how redefining a car’s purpose will influence its form and function, contributing to the shaping of new journeys.
By creating an interdisciplinary vision, the project demonstrates a commitment to developing new forms of cars, better suited to contemporary modes of interaction.
The workshop will analyze the current functions of contemporary cars, focusing on understanding user stress and the limitations of car interiors. This effort will tackle the concept of functionality in its broadest sense. Over the course of the studies, the process may unfold in three phases, each based on practical and functional investigations.
The final project should not be limited to the conventional definition of a car. Instead, it should embody diverse qualities drawn from various vehicle types.
Throughout the process, concepts will be evaluated according to functional and aesthetic criteria, integrating technological innovation, execution quality, structural clarity, and simplicity. Regarding future transportation concepts featuring advanced technologies and new production systems, projects will be assessed in terms of variable, modular, transformable, programmable, flexible, and adaptable norms. They will also be examined within the broader context of driving.
Furthermore, the aim is to shift perceptions of the structural and functional foundations of conventional cars by incorporating pragmatic, forward-thinking values.
RESULTS
Considering the current trajectory and transformative era the car industry is experiencing, it is evident that the coming decades will bring significant changes to car typologies and architecture in a broader sense. In the future, car designers will assume a more critical role as interactions between cars and people grow, and driving ceases to be the primary focus of the relationship between man and machine. Therefore, unlike in the past, this workshop aims to explore whether creating a car that blends beauty, speed, freedom, and luxury will no longer be the primary concern for car designers. Instead, the challenge will shift to designing cars that meet the needs of increasingly sophisticated consumers by fostering greater diversity and customization across various functional and spatial dimensions.
At the same time, reshaping the content of cars will take center stage, as new production methods and advanced materials enable opportunities for innovative car architectures, technical configurations, and open platforms. The role of cars as individual status symbols is evolving, with new values such as seamless integration with communities and extensive interaction with surrounding environments gaining prominence. Reimagining the purpose of cars will offer people new journeys that enhance functionality and deepen the interaction between humans and machines. In the medium term, positioning the car as a central element of personal and social transformation—while profoundly influencing its form and function—will pave the way for new archetypes and tools to meet the future needs of users.
As a result, this workshop aims to present innovative projects that transcend conventional expectations and established typologies. With its conceptual structure, experimental approach, and functional scope, the workshop seeks to develop designs that create a deeper physical and emotional connection between users and their vehicles.
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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