Pforzheim University Winter Degree Show 2010

Pforzheim University held its winter degree show earlier this month, taking over the Congresshall complex in downtown Pforzheim again, rather than the school itself, which is situated on the outskirts of the town. The German school's exhibition covered projects from five graduating Masters' students and eight BA students, with an increasing number of interior projects being tackled, especially by MA students.

The exhibition also included work from first-semester Masters students for a vehicle for the nearby spa town of Bad Herrenalb , as well as a 'My First Mercedes' project from fourth and sixth semester undergraduates. In addition, a range of designs for a VW Cargo project from third semester students was shown, with work projected on a large screen. The entrance to the Congresshall was graced with the amazing ‘Brutus' racing car from the Sinsheim museum, a veritable supercar dating from 1908 with an incredible 46-liter BMW aircraft engine.

Projects from the graduating MA students included:  

Mercedes Design Spaceship
Zimo Yang
After graduating from Tsinghua University in Beijing, Yang went on to take an Internship at Mercedes, working in interiors. This led to a final year project for a fanciful spaceship, a Virgin Galactic-type space trip capsule for four people. The 'passengers' are located in personal rigid 'sleeping bags', looking like kyacks or seed pods that can rotate to keep the occupant horizontal when in vertical flight mode and keep them rigidly located at all times. The 1:7.5 scale model was finished as a full interior/exterior mock-up, with an asymmetric window layout that affords 360 degree visibility for all occupants.

New Smart Interior
Jun Hyuck Eoh
Another full exterior/interior model using asymmetry, ‘Eddie' Eoh's project is a co-branding of a Smart car and Apple computer, set in a future where urban customers merely rent cars rather than buy them, accessing them via their iSmart PDA device. Unlike the current Smart, with its product design-inspired interior, Jun's interior set out to have very flowing lines and may be seen as a development of the currently popular Car2Go service in Ulm. The two-seat layout allows the passenger seat to stow behind that of the driver, opening up a large stowage space beside them if needed. The 1/3 model was beautifully finished with its asymmetric lift up canopy and a scale road atlas on the seat.

Active Interior for Active People
Raphael Gross
This was another interior project where a PDA device orders the most appropriate vehicle for the user's needs, with the car being automatically driven. "The assumption is that people just want to be passive when not driving a car," says Gross. "I wanted to prove the opposite: that people like to be active. So here they can create piezoelectricity to energize the vehicle, or challenge your passenger to a game". This is done by gripping a series of colored ribbons that flow around the interior, creating fun effects and colors to leave for the next user. An accompanying video showed examples of piezoelectric exhibits, including the Doewe Egberts interactive coffee machine from Dutch Design Week and the piano steps from a Scandinavian experiment, where 60 percent of passers chose the piano steps rather than tasking the escalator. "In future we'll have nano-scale piezoelectricity, woven into fabrics, generated in shoes while you walk".

BMW Airic Airin
Seung Mo Lim
This two-seater roadster explores fluid surfacing in a new way, using magnesium lightweight wire as a body cladding material. "The advantage could be to produce lower drag by encouraging airflow along the grooves, not unlike sharkskin or Speedo Fastskins," explains Lim. Interestingly, the wires were laid from the centerline of the hood outwards, so that they become increasingly distorted as they move over the various body contours onto the bodysides and around the wheelarches. The two passengers are in cockpits separated by a central windmilling fan mounted at 30 degrees that uses airflow from the rear diffuser to draw air from above through the fan to recover some energy to the motors.

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By Nick Hull