Press release: bay­ern design at IAA Mobil­i­ty Sum­mit 2023

Nuremberg/Munich, Ger­many – The bay­ern design curat­ed exhi­bi­tion titled Unknown Per­spec­tives. Design for Sus­tain­able Mobil­i­ty will illus­trate design per­spec­tives on con­nect­ed and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly mobil­i­ty in a future so far unknown. By cre­at­ing sce­nar­ios and space for oppor­tu­ni­ties, design­ers facil­i­tate inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion and dri­ve sus­tain­able inno­va­tion in the auto­mo­tive and bicy­cle indus­tries as well as in the rail­way sec­tor. Focus of the exhi­bi­tion will be on inter­ac­tions among users and with mate­ri­als, con­struc­tion, and designed objects and spaces in which design enables usabil­i­ty and pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences as well as the cre­ation of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with sus­tain­able solu­tions. With­in the pre­sen­ta­tion, per­spec­tive will switch from the micro to the macro lev­el – from sus­tain­able mate­ri­als for inte­ri­ors and AI-based wheel rim con­struc­tion to designed objects such as ergonom­ic uni­sex e‑bikes and new mobil­i­ty spaces in trains. Unknown Per­spec­tives. Design for Sus­tain­able Mobil­i­ty will demon­strate where design aids the cre­ation of the sys­tem that is mobil­i­ty and fur­thers it significantly.

Mate­r­i­al: rattan

Even today, design offers a vari­ety of meth­ods and strate­gies to improve the eco­log­i­cal impact of mate­ri­als and nat­ur­al resources in the auto­mo­tive indus­try. For exam­ple, by high­light­ing the spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics of mate­ri­als made from renew­able or recy­cled resources design can enhance their attrac­tive­ness to users. In addi­tion, using biodegrad­able or recy­clable mono­ma­te­ri­als that can be sep­a­rat­ed makes reusing them eas­i­er. Because design helps visu­al­ize cre­ative and uncon­ven­tion­al pro­cess­ing and appli­ca­tion options, it also plays a vital role in the devel­op­ment of materials.

A light­weight con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al drawn from the rat­tan palm – karu­un^® – will be fea­tured in the exhi­bi­tion. An inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able nature-tech mate­r­i­al, karu­un^® opens up new design and appli­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for the auto­mo­tive and oth­er indus­tries. The rat­tan used for this nov­el­ty mate­r­i­al is hand-har­vest­ed by local farm­ers in Indone­sia, made into blocks using ener­gy-effi­cient process­es, and then trans­formed into veneers and pan­els. Because rat­tan depends on bio­di­ver­si­ty for its sur­vival, its cul­ti­va­tion helps pre­serve trop­i­cal forests and thus con­tributes a great deal to the mod­ern cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. The design stud­ies and vehi­cle inte­ri­or com­po­nents that will be dis­played will show the vast range of uses and the aes­thet­ic band­width of this sus­tain­able nature-tech mate­r­i­al. The inno­v­a­tive karu­un® was devel­oped in coop­er­a­tion with Inno­va­tion­szen­trum Licht­en­fels of the Upper Fran­co­nia region of Bavaria.

Con­struc­tion: wheel rims

Design per­spec­tives and meth­ods help vehi­cles be built and pro­duced in a more effi­cient and sus­tain­able man­ner. Well-designed vehi­cle ele­ments require few­er mate­ri­als and pro­duce less waste. More­over, aero­dy­nam­ic design and light­weight con­struc­tion ensure high­er ener­gy effi­cien­cy dur­ing the vehi­cles’ use stage – cru­cial for elec­tric cars. Design­ers employ AI and oth­er inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies as tools. Their holis­tic view always is geared towards the appli­ca­tion and impor­tance of inno­va­tion to mankind and is vital for the sen­si­ble steer­ing of AI-dri­ven processes.

The Fel­GAN project allows the cre­atives involved to draw from a vir­tu­al­ly lim­it­less pool of ideas. In prac­tice, Fel­GAN works either by rapid­ly putting for­ward a large num­ber of pho­to­re­al­is­tic design options or by recom­bin­ing exist­ing design prin­ci­ples in a tar­get­ed man­ner. Hence, the sys­tem pro­vides the Audi Rim Design team with a type of uncon­di­tioned idea hub, and design­ers can use it to exper­i­ment with shapes, col­ors, sur­face struc­tures, and oth­er para­me­ters effort­less­ly and in real time. Fel­GAN was devel­oped and imple­ment­ed joint­ly by Audi’s IT and design departments.

Object: uni­sex bicycle

Sur­face, inter­face, and touch­point design at the object lev­el makes sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty acces­si­ble to a large tar­get group and fos­ters iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and accep­tance. Uni­ver­sal and diverse design of vehi­cle hard­ware is cru­cial in par­tic­u­lar for shared mobil­i­ty. At the same time, dig­i­tal inter­face design can enhance the indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion of mobil­i­ty expe­ri­ences. How­ev­er, dig­i­tal inter­faces must have the abil­i­ty to be updat­ed and individualized.

The cen­ter­piece of the exhib­it titled Väss­la Ped­al is a uni­sex bicy­cle frame designed for the most diverse group of users pos­si­ble regard­less of gen­der or height. Instead of stan­dard­ized 28-inch wheels, the bicy­cle fea­tures 24-inch wheels, thus facil­i­tat­ing dai­ly com­mut­ing in urban envi­ron­ments and increas­ing agili­ty. Thanks to the 2.5‑inch-wide wheels, no addi­tion­al shock absorbers are need­ed. The ergonom­ic seat of the bike designed by Zan­zot­ti Indus­tri­al Design of Munich joint­ly with Väss­la reduces pres­sure on the wrists and strain on the neck. The min­i­mal­ist han­dle­bars do not fea­ture any oper­at­ing ele­ments or cables and the front and rear lights have been inte­grat­ed for­mal­ly into the frame. Users can place a smart­phone in the inte­grat­ed hold­er and use it as a dig­i­tal inter­face for nav­i­gat­ing, thus increas­ing the longevi­ty of Väss­la Pedal.

Space: train compartments

Design cre­ates spaces with­in and out­side of vehi­cles. Inno­v­a­tive spa­tial set­tings and atmos­pher­ic designs improve the qual­i­ty of the stay on board and pro­mote undis­turbed trav­el or social inter­ac­tions in shared or indi­vid­ual mobil­i­ty set­tings. The design of new vehi­cle mod­els and infra­struc­tures facil­i­tates space-effi­cient and inter­modal mobil­i­ty in urban and rur­al areas. Space design is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant to address diverse needs for sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty and to increase user accep­tance and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to the means of transportation.

The objec­tive of the Pas­sen­ger First Mobil­i­ty Ecosys­tems devel­oped by N+P Inno­va­tion Design and Siemens Mobil­i­ty is to design a vari­ety of con­cepts for the inte­ri­ors of future high-speed trains for the glob­al mar­ket. The design focus­es on pas­sen­gers’ diverse require­ments and usage sce­nar­ios for which numer­ous ideas have been visu­al­ized based on diverse per­sonas and mobil­i­ty options. These designs address an ever-more var­ie­gat­ed group of poten­tial users.

Meet the experts – Design meets Mobil­i­ty: pan­el talk & dialog

As part of bay­ern design’s Unknown Per­spec­tives. Design for Sus­tain­able Mobil­i­ty exhi­bi­tion, on Sep­tem­ber 5 design experts Chris­tiane Baus­back (N+P Inno­va­tion Design), Manuel Kallen­berg­er (Karu­un), Daniele Siri­gat­ti (Audi), and Chris­t­ian Zan­zot­ti (Zan­zot­ti Indus­tri­al Design) will answer trade vis­i­tors’ ques­tions at the stand titled Bavaria. Land of Inno­va­tion host­ed joint­ly by the Bavar­i­an State Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Ener­gy and Bay­ern Inno­v­a­tiv. Fol­low­ing a brief pan­el dis­cus­sion start­ing at 2:30 p.m., the experts will be avail­able to talk with trade vis­i­tors from 3:00 p.m. onwards at the IAA Mobil­i­ty Sum­mit 2023, Hall B1, stand E30.

The Melville Brand Design agency of Munich sup­port­ed bay­ern design in cre­at­ing the cor­po­rate design for this exhibition.