18.06.2004 Students from the Royal College of Art in London have created their vision of city transport in the year 2015, the 'Abarth Pixel', in a project sponsored by Fiat Advanced Design

London Royal College of Art students have created challenging concepts for future transport in a radical, multi-disciplinary design project spearheaded by the Vehicle Design Department at the RCA in collaboration with Fiat Advanced Design.

Taking an experimental look at the future of travel, twenty eight postgraduate student designers from diverse international backgrounds, working in cross-disciplinary teams, have developed six transport design visions. They worked with challenging concepts in mind, which reflect changing lifestyles and human desires, including questions such as:

- How can we change the character of our car without affecting its basic structure?
- How can we better integrate a car into daily life?
- Can we create a car using flat pack concepts?
- Can we turn a vehicle's exterior into an extension of domestic personal space?
- Can we make a car which is a super, harmonious way of travelling. A place to relax?
- How can we create cars which focus more on people, a little less on the object?


Students from four RCA departments, Design Products, Interaction Design, Textiles and Vehicle Design have worked with Fiat to create visionary solutions for transport in the city for the year 2015. An exhibition presenting these ideas was held at the Royal College recently.

The Vehicle Design Department is well known for its high standards in creative, academic and innovative approaches to transport design. It is acknowledged by industry as the leading source of vehicle designers in the world.

Head of Design Research at Fiat's Concept Lab, Salvatore Cacciatore commented, "This project is part of Fiat's design research system and we know that at the RCA we can ask the most challenging questions because the academic quality is high enough for students to be able to interpret and express complexity in interdisciplinary ways. With this project we're looking at the future for design disciplines.

"Perhaps transport designers of the future will be better able to blur the boundaries between disciplines."

Dale Harrow, Head of Vehicle Design at the RCA, "This project is an exciting opportunity to develop design with an active, collaborative partner. Pixel has fully stretched the students' creative and academic abilities."

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