Some explanation from Edwin :
The exterior desing of the car is inspired by the form of fabric blown in the wind. The form also carries traces of the historical Auto Union Type C Streamline race.

There are no conventional doors on the car, but instead, inspired by the jet fighters, there are three glass canopies. The main canopy opens forward together with the steering wheel and the dashboard; the two passengers’ canopies open backwards; and a side panel on the bodywork opens downwards to act as a step, making the event of getting in and out of the cockpit very special and easy.

The interior is simply one continuous sheet, starting from the dashboard, then being folded and bended to create floor carpet and seat.

The interior of the car is as simple and futuristic as the exterior. Single sheet transparent LCD dashboard displays all the essential data such as speed and mileage. The screen in the center of the steering wheel displays digital map. The information can also be projected on the canopy by a head up display. The
whole driving experience would be like flying a fighter jet. There is a small but handy luggage space behind the driver seat for handbags and suitcases. It is also an arm rest for the passengers.

Four wheels are housed inside the car’s four “legs”. Each wheel contains an Audi In-wheel Electric Drive Unit, making the car an evolution in Audi’s trademark “Quattro” all time four-wheel-drive system. The long range Supercharge-ion battery which powers the in-wheel motors are separated into two packs located in front of as well as behind the cockpit, creating a perfect 50:50 weight distribution of the car for excellent handling.

Specifications:
Length: 4480 mm
Width: 1900 mm
Height: 1060 mm
Wheel base; 3048 mm
Weight: 800 kg
En Engine: 4 Audi In-wheel Electric Drive Units
Power: 544 hp (4 X 100 kW)
Torque: 4500 Nm (3319.03 lb-ft)
0-100km: 2.9 s
Top Speed: 360 km/h

Designer : Edwin Conan

The economical mass-production design of e-Bin includes high quality carbon fiber sheets, making it strong, durable, lightweight and suitable for all weathers. It doesn’t require an electricity source since it uses solar power for its touch screen lid. An administrator needs to be logged in to customize the different settings of the smart bin.

Designer : Baharash Bagherian

The concept’s touch-screen user-friendly interface and industrial design features the lower energy consuming Inter CPU and the ability of remote management, coupled with the upgradeability and adaptability of the hardware design, representing operational savings and reduction in total cost of ownership. With this modular architecture, retailers will be able to configure the features and the styling of the system and can reach the customers through more touch points. Also, the design will provide the opportunity to boost revenue through intelligent cross-selling tools, digital signage and targeted ads.

With this concept, customers will get personalized and heightened shopping experiences according to their needs, whether they want to check product recommendations and reviews, store information or sales, all they can have through this high-tech, self sufficient and intelligent system. Thus, customers will get an efficient, informative and streamlined real life shopping experience while remaining in touch of the convenience of online shopping.

Designer : FrogDesign

Designer : Louis Filosa

Designer : Seonkeun Park

Designer : Seonkeun Park and Byungmin Woo

Designer : Ed Boaden

[Press Release]

MIT unveils EyeStop: an iPhone‐like interactive bus stop for the City of Florence

May 14, 2009. MIT architects and engineers have unveiled EyeStop, an interactive bus stop designed for the city of Florence. On Saturday 16 May the project will be presented officially at the Genio Fiorentino by the President of the Province of Florence Matteo Renzi (dubbed ‘The Italian Obama’ by TIME Magazine).

EyeStop, developed by MIT’s SENSEable City Lab, is an exploration into the next generation of smart urban furniture; it aims to enrich the city with state of the art sensing technologies, interactive services, community information and entertainment. The project is partially covered with touch sensitive e‐INK and screens, so that it can deliver information to people seamlessly. Users can plan a bus trip on an interactive map, exchange community‐relevant information on a digital message board, surf the web, monitor their real time exposure to pollutants and use their mobile devices as an interface with the bus shelter. “Interacting with EyeStop could change the access to urban information in a similar way to how the iPhone has changed our mobile life” commented Carlo Ratti, Head of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT.

At the touch of a finger users can indicate their desired destination; the system will then display the shortest bus route from where they are and the position of all relevant buses real‐time. The EyeStop will glow at different levels of intensity to signal the distance of an approaching bus. Riders and passers‐by can also post ads and community announcements to an electronic bulletin board placed on the bus stop, enhancing its functionality as a public space ‐ a place to gather and exchange community relevant information.

In addition to displaying information, the bus stop also acts as an active environmental sensing node, powering itself through sunlight and collecting real time information about air quality and the urban environment. “EyeStop is an experiment into urban computing: it may be considered an “info‐tape” that snakes through the city, rising up like a pole or cropping out of the sidewalk like a shelter. It senses information about the environment and distributes it in a form accessible to all citizens” – commented project leader Giovanni de Niederhousern.

A generative parametric model produces a unique design for each bus stop, providing both optimal sheltering for users and maximum sunlight exposure for direct photovoltaic powering. Unlike the typical mass‐produced bus stop, EyeStop is designed to fit the physical characteristics of its surroundings, with each unit being slightly different from the others. Furthermore, simple materials like shiny steel, extra clear glass and gray local stone (pietra serena), together with its minimalist design, serve to optimize how it blends into the historic urban fabric of Florence.

“Since the Renaissance, there has been an interplay between the physical form of the city (urb) and its citizenship (civitas),” added Carlo Ratti. “Today’s technologies are adding new possibilities to that age‐long relationship, thanks to the addition of digital information to physical space. It is as if a new materiality were emerging in architecture, with the seamless blending of bits and atoms…”

EyeStop was developed at the SENSEable City Laboratory by Giovanni de Niederhousern, Shaocong Zhou, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti, in collaboration with the Province of Florence and the local public transportation authority ATAF.

Designer : Giovanni de Niederhousern, Shaocong Zhou, Assaf Biderman and Carlo Ratti via Core77

This electronic device is combined with a speech synthesis and a digital camera with a shape of a traditional product. The speech synthesis is able to decode texts to voice streams and the screen can be used as a magnification in conditions when the speech synthesis is not working. One good example of such situations is when a visual handicapped person wants to illuminate for instance images or illustrations which can be portrayed in endless ways. This device comprises a bendable OLED display featuring non-photosensitive images, fast speech synthesis and a digital camera module. Not all of these devices are ready to use today, but many of them are already operational.

This project took ten long weeks to accomplish aiming to create a product that will enable various options to clarify information for those people who are visually handicapped. The intention was not to replace the physical companion. Rather, it is an attempt to strengthen the self confidence of the users by feeling more self-governing.

Designer : Erik Rydell

The 2030 Honda’s luxury sports sedan, Zeppelin Concept, was designed with a design direction of “High-tech Dynamic”, inspired from an airship. The feeling of mass has been completed by applying design elements of aerodynamic form from an airship, and on top of that, expressed the distinct powerful image of Honda. Especially the asymmetrical main character line extends from the front hood along the roof line, to all the way back at the rear end. Hexagonal front grille and thick nose volume and the protruding horizontal lamp completes the dynamic face.

The interior was also inspired from the airship, reminiscent of a cozy salon or a first-class seat of an airplane. There is no dashboard in Zeppelin. All the necessary information and other elements needed for driving is displayed on the inter panel of the car, and everything is controlled with only the minimum physical movement due to the use of voice recognition technology. The seat position can be changed freely. That front row seat can rotate 360 degrees and so when the car is not moving, the front row seat and the back row seat can face each other. This makes it possible for a brief meeting, enjoying tea and even working in the car, which could also provide a new experience to the family or a fellow passenger. Due to the display environment on the windshield it was possible to use the angle of windshield and the shape of the A-pillar as a design element of the exterior without any restriction.

Designer : Myung Jin Jung