Page 47 - AIT0118_E-Paper

„Allowing differences and being open to

new influences...“

A re we as an automobile nation really open to new influences or are we too busy
looking for mistakes in new vehicle concepts? The Hornschuch Company together
with Continental puts us to the test. And it takes a lot of courage to provide an interior
design office - from Stuttgart, of all places - with a diesel vehicle for testing purposes,
which is covered with film from front to back. A camouflaged diesel vehicle as a diver-
sion of the car industry? No - not at all! “The concept car is a platform with which the
Hornschuch Group is able to impressively show its full range of skills in the automo-
tive context,” the press release says. “E-mobility, digital connectivity and autonomous
driving are the megatrends of the automotive industry. This also changes the meaning
of surfaces for drivers and passengers in terms of design and function. They must
meet the highest demands and no longer have much in common with conventional
surfaces. The Hornschuch Group has developed “The Pioneer” in order to make the
future tangible today.” And the test vehicle is impressive anyway! In fact, especially
autonomous driving could change everything we used to associate with driving. In a
work environment that we recently completed, everything revolves around precisely
that - developing innovative, new ideas for the automotive industry. That's why it
seems familiar to us to think about the automotive future. Autonomous driving in par-
ticular should occupy architects and urban planners; as we have seen from the exam-
ple of the railway in America, it was only its expansion that enabled cities and urban
centres to grow at this rate. Nowadays, no one denies that cities will continue to grow
and that rural and structurally weak regions will have fewer and fewer inhabitants.
However, since no trend lasts forever, one may wonder what could help to stop or
even reverse this trend. The autonomous vehicle can be important in this respect.
That would be the case once we can eat, sleep and work in the vehicle which can
take us anywhere, regardless of our age and suitability for driving. Perhaps the interior
will then also become more important than the automobile's outer body.

More individuality - also in the interior

From this point of view, the approach of Hornschuch and Continental is absolutely
right to use the concept car to achieve a greater awareness for individuality, also in
the interior. However, this is not the only topic that should be reflected in the concept,
and this makes it somewhat diffuse. From digitally printed reflective film to imitation
leather and plastic with a three-dimensional honeycomb structure – there is some-
Futuristisch wirkendes Materialkonzept • Material concept with a futuristic effect thing to discover everywhere, and even a starry sky has made it onto the designers'
In the interior, we also find a range of different materials: the imitation leather with
a wooden look reminds us of the trend towards tiles with an identical finish and
Die Sitze sollen an eine Krawatte erinnern. • The seats are meant to look like a tie. rather raises questions, as it appears out of place alongside the futuristic materials
from the "Louis Vuitton-5" space station. However, the biggest question mark arises
for the viewer when it comes to the seats, and here we come to the actual theme of
the vehicle's look & feel: "New Business". The seats with the central application are
supposed to be clearly reminiscent of a tie. But can I imagine a businesswoman or
businessman who, after a successful business meeting, gets into a car with a shirt and
tie seemingly hanging over the seat? At the same time, the look of this explicit design
is not overly conspicuous, and if you didn't know what it was supposed to be, this
topic wouldn't suggest itself in the first place. Too late! The question that preoccupied
me the most was about the effect on myself and others. After all, the car can't be over-
looked and I wouldn't aim at being in the limelight on the road on my own initiative.
In order to approach this question, it has helped to find the building that provides the
best backdrop for the car's appearance: the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-
Zuffenhausen. Rather unexpectedly, what belongs together came together at the
museum: a sensational concept car and the foreign car enthusiasts visiting the muse-
um. The German visitors were rather reserved, but the Asian visitors reacted openly
and enthusiastically to the sparkling star on wheels. And this also answers the initial
question of whether we as an automobile nation are open to new influences. Actually,
only if they fit into our familiar image of a car. And so, testing this concept vehicle
gives us a piece of advice that we have known for a long time in our profession as
interior respectively architectural designers, but that seems to be more difficult in the
automotive sector: allowing differences and being open to new influences.

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