Coventry University MA Design Degree Show 2004

An industry seminar was also hosted on the opening evening with a keynote speech by Kevin Rice, Design Manager, BMW 1-Series, and with event sponsorship by Corus. Kevin Rice, a former Coventry graduate, also presented the Corus Award for Best Vehicle Design, which was awarded to Charles Drury. Charles showed a digitally-presented project called 'Industrial, Light and Magic' that mimicked some of the effects used by the film industry. A former classics graduate, Charles also studied whether the use of advanced digital and visual 'tricks' might recapture the publics' fascination with concept vehicles that we appear to have lost recently.

Judges for the Corus Awards also included:
- Steve Cropley, Editor in Chief, Haymarket publications
- Mike Tovey, Dean, Coventry School of Art & Design
- Jon King, Director of Corus Automotive

Runner-up Rajesh Kutty's F1 project envisaged an alternative amphibious race series to F1 cars, where each lap would involve a mixture of track racing and transforming to skim through a lake. The model was tested in the university wind tunnel and was shown to provide adequate levels of both roadgoing aerodynamics and hydrodynamics for lift in water. 

A project entitled 'Gigaspeed', by student Gabriel Crosa, looked at how passion could be brought into electric vehicles to engage more fully with buyers on an emotional level, rather than just the rational one of zero emissions. Gabriel, from Uruguay, incorporated new idioms of electrical power such as computer cooling fins, coil windings and fans to bring new detailing to the forms and add visual excitement to his two-seater sports concept.

Jonathan Shakespeare pushed the technological envelope of automotive design by proposing an eight legged vehicle for 2082 controlled directly from the drivers brain. The research involved proposing a post-apocalypse future scenario where very little road infrastructure remains where the need is for highly manoeuvrable search and rescue vehicles. The main propulsion uses synthetic muscle fibre technology, while the two occupants are suspended in harnesses from the cabin roof to absorb the massive undulations of this future terrain.

David Barnes took the fashion designer Vivien Westwood as inspiration for his vehicle. The result is a bold and controversial chariot for delivering celebrities to high profile 'red carpet' events such as the Oscars or BAFTA film premieres. The shape deliberately echoes the forms of the female figure, with extended feet to provide a degree of protection when emerging from the front ramp of the vehicle.

Yasu Hosoda, from Japan, presented a more recognisable automotive design entitled 'Hello-Goodbye' that took a poetic approach to explaining the concept of a new large sedan. The use of unusual crayon techniques for sketching and representation was a particularly striking aspect of the work. He also showed a study for a new Renault Megane design, which explored the use of concave surfaces.

Mark Wilkinson showed a roadster where the jagged exterior form can act as a canvas for owners to commission graffiti artists to customise it, as a way of the vehicle becoming an extension of the urban landscape. A raw concrete cast of the exterior form was also displayed, which has since been sold as a piece of sculpture. 

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