Interior Motives Europe conference 2008

Interior Motives Europe was held on June 17 and 18 in Turin, Italy. Many of the attendees have testified they found the conference beneficial, interesting and enjoyable.

Our team could welcome top-level attendees from the design industry all over Europe. The delegates included representatives from the following companies:

Interior Motives is scheduling dates and venues for next year and we will make a decision soon after carefully evaluating the feedback from this year's conference. In the meantime, if you would like us to keep you updated about the Interior Motives Design Conferences 2009, please click here

Europe's car design elite debate the big issues

The challenges of designing low-cost cars, moving toward zero-impact vehicles, the pressure to 'go retro' and redefining luxury were some of the topical issues that were discussed at the Interior Motives' Europe Conference held in Turin from June 17 to 19.

The one hundred-strong audience heard speakers from Europe's car design elite passionately debate the big design issues at the prestigious Santo Stefano Hotel in the heart of the city - Italy's automotive capital and also, appropriately, the official World Design Capital for 2008.

Delegates, made up of key designers from carmakers and Tier One suppliers as well as product designers, brand experts and members of the design media listened to presentations as diverse as Fiat's Roberto Giolito and GM's Anthony Lo to Microsoft's Dr Manuel Simas and Wally Yachts's Adriana Monk.

The major issue discussed was car design's role in moving towards zero-impact vehicles with both major OEMs - like GM - and small start-ups like the Mindset Project, revealing their respective near-future plans to launch hi-tech, zero-emission electric vehicles.

Former Lancia design chief Michael Robinson (founder of design firm Crossover Creative Consortium) made one of the most impassioned speeches of the conference, with a radically different take on the same topic - looking at ways to design-out crash impacts on future cars.

One of his predictions was that by 2050, cars would be driving themselves, allowing for a massively reduced physical safety kit count that would translate into lower weight and therefore emissions too. He also predicted that in 40 years' time, humans would be making love to and marrying robots (you had to be there to understand why).

Back to 2008, design legend Peter Stevens warned Western designers of the need to avoid arrogance and preconception when designing for emerging markets. Renowned product designer and technologist Geoff Hollington looked at new ways car designers might re-define luxury citing non-automotive examples like the hard nylon sophistication of a Prada bag and the muted matte cool of a Panerai watch's titanium case.

The question and answer sessions at the conclusion of each of the seven sessions proved as popular as ever and provided ample opportunity for delegates to join in with what proved to be some highly thought-provoking debates.

Full coverage of the Interior Motives conference in Turin will be published in the September/October edition of Interior Motives magazine.