College Exhibition: Umea Institute of Design Degree Show 2007

Masters students at Umea University Institute of Design exhibited their final projects in at their annual Degree Exhibition in early June. This year, a record 45 students exhibited their work, including 13 from MA Transportation Design, 8 from MA Advanced Product Design, 10 from MA Interaction Design and a further 14 from the BA Industrial Design course.

This year's MA Transportation Design programme was led by Lasse Pettersson, with Nick Coughlan as external tutor. The MA Transportation Design included the following projects:

Citroen C-Vitesse by Sten Haggblom (Sweden), in collaboration with Citroen Design. The idea behind this project is that the vehicle consists of four basic parts and can interact with other vehicles virtually. The main body can be likened to a 'queen bee', with the driver and engine turbines in a separate module entitled 'the rebel'. Up front is a small module termed 'the guide' that can fly remotely ahead, check out the terrain and possible racing venues, search for potential challengers and report back to the 'queen'. A complementary rear guide 'spy' module is equipped with a camera to shoot footage of any ensuing challenges and to project a ghost image of any virtual challenger.

Won-Chol Yeom (South Korea) has always had a great passion for trucks. His project, made in collaboration with Renault Trucks, celebrates 30 years of Renault in F1. There have always been Magnum rigs supporting the race team and this project applies F1 technology to Renault trucks and takes it forward to 2025. The rig is split into two parts: a vast upper module comprising the cab with center steering position, living quarters and then a double-deck storage area for four cars. Yeom took a novel approach by starting with a sketch of his vision of the next 2012 Magnum, projecting key elements of this forward to a 2024 model and then developing a special edition as his final output. "I really love to try to get beauty out of a box!" says Yeom.

Kristin Fottner (Germany), showed a 2020 interior for a small car, developed in collaboration with Skoda Design. The target customer is Gen-Y, who by 2020 will be middle aged, with very different attitudes of luxury from today. For them, time and security will be the greatest luxury, and a slower pace of life will be their aim. Although the steering wheel with floating rim appeared to have some unsolved ergonomic weaknesses, it exhibited a fresh use of Czech luxury materials, including blue and white porcelain, natural walnut and crystal. More successful were the drivers seat that folds into the floor and the rear split bench seat that can slide forward onto the rear-hinged doors. Shoe storage in the end of the IP contains neat set of very soft, comfortable driving shoes, that mimics the way we enter a luxury home or yacht with precious floors.

Louise Temin (Sweden) showed her 'Scania Torped' project that aims to open new markets for Scania by using a sports car as a publicity tool to showcase the much-loved V8 truck engine. Key areas of Scania form language include the wrap-around visor screen, a 'legendary and heroic posture' and a use of horizontal lines in the front face. The side view is characterised by a 'pulling-forward' line from the rocker through the door to the fender and a complementary wraparound line into the rear trunk. A very shallow DLO and large wheels complete the look.

The Alter Ego project from Jonathan Anthierens (Belgium) proposes a 1+1 tandem layout with front mid engine V8 and strongly tapered body form as a new flagship model for BMW. Features include a flying buttress targa roof and fender wings that can be removed to create a 'naked' version, together with a complete front end and fenders can be changed to allow extensive customisation possibilities. "This is a new direction for BMW. The tensed surfaces contain lines that deliberately do not intersect "says Anthierens.

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