Join CDN live from the RCA on 24 June 2010

Car Design News will be reporting live – via Twitter – from the Vehicle Design MA Degree Show 2010 at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London on the afternoon of Thursday, 24 June (after 13:00 GMT). 

The CDN team will be attending the show and interviewing the RCA's student designers, researchers, tutors, alumni, automotive experts and other professionals in attendance from the design community.

We'll be posting all our news, photos, video clips and interviews to CDN's Twitter site so CDN's audience can get a real insight into innovative, future transport solutions from some of the world's most talented vehicle design students.

At 16:00 GMT, the day culminates with a CDN exclusive online opportunity to "remotely attend" this year's Pilkington Vehicle Design Awards direct from the RCA via webinar. Register here to attend online for free. (Registration for this event is NOW CLOSED).

Participate in a live Q&A
The webinar enables online attendees to listen to the announcement of the winners and view the award-winning designs together with live commentary from a number of the awards' judges. In addition, attendees will be able to submit live questions to the winners and judges via on-screen messaging, to which they can respond by live audio.

The annual Pilkington Vehicle Design Awards challenge the RCA's international student design community to create innovative and inspirational vehicle designs. The awards recognize the creative vision and talent of new car designers, and on 24 June they will be presented to two students (from a shortlist of eight) graduating from the MA degree program in Vehicle Design.

Discover vehicle design talent
The Pilkington awards are highly regarded and, now in their 23rd year with the RCA, have become renowned in the industry for spotting the vehicle design stars of the future. Several former winners have gone on to establish successful careers with leading carmakers and design studios.

The webinar will last about 30 minutes and will be hosted by Paula Hilditch, Global Product Manager, Pilkington Automotive. The event is being held on Thursday, 24 June 2010 at 17:00 British Summer Time (London, 16:00 GMT +01:00; 18:00 in Europe; 12:00 EDT in the US).

Take this opportunity to pick the creative minds of the RCA's most talented student vehicle designers, and find out from the judges what makes an award-winning design.

Winning student designers of 2009
Last year's Pilkington Vehicle Design Awards' winners were Hong K Yeo and Magdalena Schmid. Yeo won the Best Design Interpretation Award for his modular 'VW Concerto', a sustainable design that took the form of numerous personalized pieces that came together in a similar way to Lego bricks.

The concept utilized two frames that could accommodate different sections added on over the course of the owner's life. "It can be a two-seater in college, a four-seater when you get married and start a family, and a two-seater if you get divorced," Yeo commented. "If you tire of a piece, or if life changes call for it, you can exchange it for something else."

Yeo said he believed that: "Sustainable design should be designed from the beginning and easy to disassemble at the end of its life cycle." Awards judge David Wilkie, from Mindset, added that Yeo "had gone beyond the sheet metal and designed a modular concept that was a good reflection of society today. Although the design was very realistic in its approach," he said "it remained stimulating, attractive and futuristic at the same time".

Magdalena Schmid won the award for Best Use of Glazing with her space-age 'BMW Pixie' glass pod – a concept that explored depth of surfaces, surface and architecture, and surface and function. Her two-seat vehicle was made up of a combination of Lexan glass, that assumed the architectural function, and an external structure made from a porous material, similar to a sponge. The virtual aspect of Schmid's vehicle changed a paradigm that designers consider to be all-important: the highlights and surfaces were no longer the carrier of the design.

Both Magdalena Schmid and Hong K Yeo will also be attending this year’s show at the RCA, together with previous winners of the Pilkington Vehicle Design Awards. We hope you too can join us online.

Look out for our live Twitter feed from the RCA Vehicle Design MA Degree Show on CDN's homepage on Thursday, 24 June 2010. Or link directly to CDN's Twitter site (also accessible from the CDN homepage at the base of the sidebar). Finally, join us for our exclusive free live webinar and the awards announcement with the judges, the winning student designers at the RCA, and Pilkington Automotive. We look forward to seeing you there... (Registration for this event is NOW CLOSED)

CDN will be publishing a full report on the RCA Vehicle Design Degree Show 2010 in the coming weeks.

Related Article:
Royal College of Art MA Degree Show 2009 – featuring the Pilkington Vehicle Design Awards winners

Related Websites:
Royal College of Art
Pilkington

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By CDN Team