Wednesday 15 July 2009

BMW Pixie- the depth of surface

Magdalena Schmid, MA Vehicle Design: "It is no longer about designing the surface of a car, but the values it represents as an object, not only for the users but also for the sociocultural infrastructure- a car for ‘cultural movement'.
My PIXIE concept aims to turn this condition of complexity into a positive mobility experience, moving you not only from A-B, but also in a theoretical way- changing your position within an ethical dimension towards recovering values that have become virtual in the last 10 years, like relationships, responsibility and active participation in society. I am approaching my design by translating the virtual back into an object/car whose main feature will be a different way of surfacing: by using porous structures to build the surface, I will achieve a bigger internal surface than on the outside, which will be used for functions like an evaporative cooling system. The architecture of the car will be updateable like software: the electric drive train is most likely to be out of date in a few years and therefore has to be easy to upgrade, by not integrating the battery in the hardware of the architecture. Fueling will no longer be just a matter of spending energy but creating an energy cycle, which keeps unused power available by using the existing infrastructure of streetlamps, creating an energy feedback."

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