Interior Motives Europe Conference 2008

Interior Motives magazine hosted its fourth annual design conference at the Santo Stefano Hotel in Turin, Italy - the official World Design Capital 2008 - from June 17 to 19 this year. A melting pot for innovative ideas, the conference featured enlightening presentations from some of the world's leading designers, all revolving around the theme 'Intelligent Design for Tomorrow's World'.

Held over the course of two days, the conference began with a session entitled ‘Redefining Luxury' chaired by CEO and Managing Director of Torino Design, Roberto Piatti. Speakers on the panel consisted of Adriana Monk of Wally Yachts; Francesca Sangalli, Head of Concept Design at Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design in Como, Italy; and designer, technologist and innovator, Geoff Hollington. Though the panelists all came from a breath of different areas of design, the buzzwords at this session and throughout the conference were sustainability and environmental design. But with luxury being already well defined, the challenge of redefining luxury for future generations is not an easy task for any industry. "Only if we impose ourselves to forget what luxury is today can we come up with a new definition" said Piatti.

After a relaxing coffee break where delegates contemplated the notion of being on their own floating island aboard a dutifully appointed Wally Yacht, the second session delved into examining retro-inspired design. Chair David Wilkie, Design Director at Stile Bertone, began the session saying: "It is interesting [to see how] at Stile Bertone, with an angle to design for the future, also looks back." Roberto Giolito, Director of Fiat Stile and the man behind the reinterpretation of the iconic Cinquecento, shared the podium with Mark Phillips, Interior Design Manager at Jaguar's Advanced Design studio and Lancia Style Director Marco Tencone. "The key word is 'reinterpretation', not retro design" said Tencone. "Retro is the starting point but we have to take the opportunity to evolve the identity of the brand." An interesting point was also brought up during this session: might the Ford Ka be viewed as an iconic design and reinterpreted in the future?

At the end of the session Sebastien Stassin commented that it was easy for brands such as Jaguar and Fiat to plunder the past, as they already had 'assets' from which to reinvent designs. Following an alfresco lunch in the courtyard, Stassin would prove his point as speakers and delegates reconvened for session three, entitled 'Totally Designed'. Stassin, a partner in the Kiska Design firm which launched the first four wheeled vehicle for motorcycle maker KTM; Peter Jansen, Director of Fiat Professional Style and Michal Jelinek, Solutions Architect for Autodesk, spoke about relating to the customer base in order to create vehicles, branding and systems from the ground up. Chairing the session was Peter Stevens, now Director of his own design firm, who casually joked that in creating the X-Bow Kiska had thrown "a hand grenade into car design."

The fourth session of the day dealt with designing cars for emerging markets. Entitled 'Designing for the Emerging World' and chaired by Dr. V Sumatran, CEO at Tata Motors during the creation of the Indian automaker's 'people's car', panel members consisted of Peter Stevens, Roberto Piatti and Michael Miller, Chief of Design at Flotek. One of the more interesting sessions of the day, the panel focused on what the needs were for the people in the countries for which they were designing. Concluding the session and the day, Stevens asked the delegates in attendance what they thought of the Nano, a car which has been lauded for providing mobility to the masses in emerging markets. Visibly provoked, Dr. V Sumatran replied "I wasn't sure if Peter was trying to wind me up" before explaining that considerable market research had been conducted in the creation of the 'one-lahk' car.

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By Eric Gallina