People in Transit

This guiding course, which runs throughout the program, is HUMAN MOBILITY. This course frames the three project courses, safeguarding their coherence and connection. Lectures address context driven design, design project management and program coherence. Students compose their own reader, which is their final individual deliverable in this minor.

AUTOMOTIVE STYLING is the first individual project. The emphasis is on the quality of the manifestation, the outer-skin of the car. How do people perceive and value the styling of a car? This first project aims at understanding the complexity of the current state of automotive design, i.e. the styling of automobiles. The goal is to understand automotive design ‘language’ and the ‘level of expertise’ that is required to be able to communicate with and fulfil a role within the field of automotive design. Lectures include aesthetics, branding and aerodynamics. This first, individual, project encompasses the restyle of an existing vehicle.

In the second ‘inside-out’ team project AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY students design vehicles that enable people to fulfil their mobility needs in a meaningful way, in a specific context and for the short-term future. Product-user interaction is investigated qualitatively as much as quantitatively. Lectures include ergonomics, safety, vehicle dynamics, technology and structures, package design and near future developments such as car sharing and autonomous driving. The outcome of this project is the design of a full vehicle package, and its reflection on the styling, i.e. the coherence between ‘under the skin’ requirements and styling.

In the third and final project MOBILITY SYSTEMS DESIGN the previous projects come together in the design of a long-term future mobility system design. It starts from the idea that every specific context triggers specific end-user behaviour. Ethical choices on sustainability and inclusion help the designer understand how to take a stand, and which behaviour is appropriate. Newly designed mobility means, bringing together technology, usability and styling, will elicit what the designer wants to accomplish with and for people. All learning in the previous projects falls into place. Lectures include the taxonomy of human goals, design for emotion, mobility systems (policies, services and products), safety, sustainability and the build environment. This final project kicks off in small teams, researching a future context and designing an integrated mobility system. After the team phase, each team member individually designs a full vehicle for that specific future context.

Automotive skills

AUTOMOTOVE SKILLS Involves sketching and drawing, CAD modelling, prototyping, animation, VR as a design tool and the interaction between all of those. It runs in parallel with the project courses for the duration of the minor. The intensive exercises are related to the projects.