MARRIAGE
A car that reflects the most profound relationship
Can we design a car that revolves around a relationship rather than the latest technology?
MA VD RCA Degree Project 2010
+ 1 Year Exhibition in Transporation Design Museum, London
"My beloved spoke, and said to me: Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away."
Song of Songs 2:10
Over the last 100 years, car design has revolved around technological enhancement. What kind of power source you have, how many people you can carry or what size engine you have largely determined the look and experience of the car. Like we studied in the previous project Opel Breakthrough, the convenience that's aided by technology alone cannot fulfill deeper needs human beings have. Through Marriage I wanted to bring a paradigm shift in designing a vehicle that is no longer a performance or status statement but a relationship status. And it is no exaggeration to say that marriage is arguably the epitome of all human relationships. And in this day and age it needs help to be what it is supposed to be, not the concept itself but the people who consist of it.
Marriage base itself around the year 2030 when I predicted to have autonomous technology matured and still the congestion is heavy.
It consists of a fully electric autonomous car and a bio-fuel powered gyro-copter(a gyro-copter only has a forward moving propulsion system and it gets the lift naturally by its vertical horizontal rotor without the need of an engine, thus it's lighter and more economical). The car can quietly cruise around the town driving itself, while the gyro-copter can navigate around the sky-scrapers and get you to your next meeting at no time. They have very different ways of powering themselves and serve the same purpose very differently but looks like a part. Individually they look different, but in a closer look into characters, one may realise the fabrics that make up each of them are the same and look the same. That in essence, they are one and long to be one.
Each vehicle is to be used by each of the couple, but they are meant to best function when joined together. Relationally, it provides a special space in time for a couple where only two of them occupy a space moving toward the same destination in a car specially designed for their relationship. On the hybrid mode they copilot the journey looking at the same direction while gyro-copter's engine powers the rear wheel in addition to two front wheel motors. They can sit face to face each other when the autonomous mode is on. The gyrocopter's bio-diesel engine charges the battery to extend the range. Separately, they are good but together it's much more than the sum of each one. It's where each one belongs in the safe covenant relationship.
The form language is organic to capture the romantic nature of the marriage. Colours have meanings as the white drape predominantly covering the car symbolizes purity like the wedding dress and the black authority, red being the common thread that holds and flows through the two elements together.
