Hyundai Motor Group and Rhode Island School of Design unveil collaborative project
Four fields including Digital + Media, Industrial Design + Architecture, and Textiles
Hyundai Motor Group and the Rhode Island School of Design (hereinafter RISD), a world-renowned art university in the United States, have unveiled a collaborative project of joint research on the theme of future city design.
This joint research builds on the design collaboration that Hyundai Motor Group and RISD launched last year to realize their future mobility vision, and it was conducted with the goal of discovering innovative design ideas from ‘nature,’ which has continued to make immense progress and advancement over a long period of time.
In particular, this project involved design collaboration on the theme of ‘Future City,’ an expansion in scope from last year’s ‘Future Mobility.’ It holds great significance in that Hyundai Motor Group—which is building a future mobility ecosystem encompassing future vehicles such as electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles, as well as Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and smart cities—and RISD, which possesses world-class design research capabilities, are continuing their joint research on the broader theme of ‘Future City.’
The partner conducting the research together with Hyundai Motor Group is RISD’s ‘Nature Lab.’ Established in 1937, it is a research institution that has supported diverse and in-depth research on natural organisms and ecosystems, and it is renowned for holding biological specimens of various animals, plants, and insects, as well as cutting-edge research facilities.
The joint research was carried out during RISD’s spring semester from February to May this year across four design fields: △Digital + Media △Industrial Design + Architecture △Illustration △Textiles.
The ‘Digital + Media’ design research team (advising professor: Katia Zolotovsky) studied designs that can interact and respond to their surrounding environment using self-healing cells and biosensing. The team also derived various ideas for solving environmental pollution problems through research on microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi.
The ‘Industrial Design + Architecture’ design research team (advising professors: Soojung Ham, Ryan McCaffery) proposed several research models and scenarios for realizing a sustainable future city based on the exploration of natural ecosystems. This team also considered design approaches for building infrastructure environments that would provide new experiences and value to future society.
The ‘Illustration’ design research team (advising professor: Rafael Attias) studied various designs that can clearly visualize information within complex cities by utilizing audiovisual elements such as media, animation, and sound.
Finally, the ‘Textiles’ design research team (advising professor: Joy Ko) analyzed diverse human behaviors in order to design fabrics and structures that create new value. The team also studied ways to apply nature’s self-protecting characteristics—such as those of a silkworm cocoon—to design.
Following the spring semester, Hyundai Motor Group and RISD plan to conduct advanced research in this summer’s semester, and they intend to continue collaborating to discover a variety of design ideas for realizing the future city.
▲ The ‘Ideal Soil Environment Learned Through Mycelium in the Soil’ design project proposed by the ‘Digital + Media’ design research team