share on Buffer“Concept Car with GM” is a Design Workshop that since 2003 is open to MIT students of design, architecture and engineering. It involves the partecipation of architect Frank Gehry and General Motors.
“The goal of this design workshop is to radically rethink the relationship of the car and the city. We
will pursue this goal, in close collaboration with Frank O. Gehry Partners and General Motors, by
developing and critically evaluating designs for a concept car. The eventual outcome, after further
development and documentation of a chosen option, will be the construction of a full-scale, running
prototype.”
The most innovative project – as reported recently by many weblogs and magazines – is a City Car that can be stacked for parking and recharging.
The other two projects developed by Prof Mitchell’s research group – called Smart Cities Group – include the Zero Car, a full-scale working prototype with omni-directional driving ability for 1 to 4, and the Athlete Car, an expressive performance vehicle with a dynamic articulating chassis and flexible
sneaker-like exterior.
All of the three concept adopt high-tech wheels with embedded electric motor and suspension and represent the latest evolution of the concepts developed at MIT during the previous editions of the Workshop.
In-Wheel Suspension CAD drawings “We work
in small groups to design, engineer and fabricate working mockups and models.”
“We work from the
beginning in a sophisticated 3D geometric modeling environment (Catia), making extensive
use of rapid prototyping and other facilities for producing physical scale-models.”
Some interesting videos of the 2003-2004 Concept Car Workshop can be found here.
(Source: MIT via Autoblog, Guardian Unlimited, ZDNet)
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