Honda opens Advanced Design Studio in Los Angeles

Honda inaugurated its new Advanced Design Studio in Los Angeles last week, coinciding with the LA auto show's first press day. It's the third design studio for the Japanese manufacturer in the region and is poised to lead the development of Honda's advanced automobile design activity.

The new studio is located in the heart of Downtown LA, which has been experiencing a resurgence in the past decade. It is currently a cultural hotbed, mixing an ethnically diverse group of people with a vibrant, creative art, fashion and architecture scene.

"The demographic that work here wants to live downtown," said Dave Marek, Honda R&D Americas' Design Director. "And if they want to live here because of the nightlife and the influences that they have then why not just let them work here too?"

Measuring over 600 square meters, the new studio is almost 100 square meters larger than the facility Honda Advanced Design has called home for the last six years current studio space in Pasadena, CA.

But the space feels much larger than that, thanks in part to reconfigurable elements that can be concealed or removed entirely.

While the Pasadena studio required designers to work in a large cocoon at the center of the space and dedicated the rest of the area to public benefit, the new studio is more open and airy, though it still has a public element that allows the works of emerging fashion designers and artists to be displayed inside the studio space and visible from outside. 

The dividing wall that separates the public benefit area from the main studio is louvered, offering glimpses of the design work behind.

"We want to still have some public benefit area, but it's been minimized," Marek said of the public space, a contractual requirement in the Pasadena studio. "It's still our choice to follow through with [the public benefit] because it gives some interest to the space and helps us feel better about it."

The new studio houses a modeling space, an internal viewing area with stadium seating, a projector with two large screens that descend to mimic a Powerwall, large digital screens and a shipping container that doubles as a conference room. 

The entire back wall of the shipping container is on hinges, facilitating access to the space outside and enabling live reviews with Honda's other design studios worldwide.

"There's a lot of opportunity to bring the Tokyo studio over and interact with them, which ties in with the global aspect of what we're trying to do," Marek said.

In the last six years, Honda's Advanced Design facility in California has been responsible for the Remix concept car, the three-passenger FC Sport hydrogen sports car, and the Honda P-NUT urban coupe concept. 

The new LA studio will build on the existing design studio network, which also includes the Honda and Acura facilities in Torrance, near the Japanese company's US corporate headquarters.

Eric Gallina is the Editor of formtrends.com Follow him on twitter @FormTrends

By Eric Gallina