BMW LayerON Concept

New Designers 11 Dec 2008

The BMW LayerON is a design study of a futuristic rental vehicle which can be customized in shape by means of electrically controlled outer panels. It was created by Turin IED students Aydar Nigmatullin, Patrick De Laet Moreno and Rocco Sergio D’Argento (Italy).

The BMW LayerON Concept was created by Aydar Nigmatullin (Russia), Patrick De Laet Moreno (Spain) and Rocco Sergio D’Argento (Italy) for their final thesis at Turin-based IED – Istituto Europeo di Design.

The project was sponsored by BMW with the goal of creating a car for 2015 interpreting the language evolution and the brand’s philosophy.

The project – named BMW LayerOn – was developed in two main steps.

In the first exploratory stage, the students imagined the future world and society.

"We noticed that the world ‘goes virtual’ : people buy less
and rent more. The post-industrial society is characterized by the
vast use of services and, respectively, decreased purchase of goods."

"We
imagined that future generations will go further
following this trend. And they would like to have a rental car when
they need it rather than to buy one."

Another trend taken into consideration was the need for personalization.

"Everybody want to have a car that reflects one’s personality, a car that is fully customizable. And this was our challenge: to make a car for
rent, but still personal."

The second step was to develop a vehicle for the above scenario. The LayerON has a skeleton-like structure on which the covering panels create a sort of outer skin.

The front panels have a sandwich structure: the plastic material outside is combined with an internal layer which is electrically controlled and can can contract and dilate, thus changing the overall shape of the vehicle.

"This is how the car obtains human-like
personality: active layers can bend creating diffrents "face"
expressions."

The car could be available for rent worldwide and
could be customized in few seconds by simply downloading the driver’s settings, including the exterior appearance, favorite interface
of car display, the electronic driver’s assistant voice, driving
preferences ect.

About the Designers

The LayerON was created by a team composed by Aydar Nigmatullin (Russia), Patrick De Laet Moreno
(Spain) and Rocco Sergio D’Argento (Italy). Aydar Nigmatullin is currently completing his internship at
Stile Bertone.