Competition showcases designers of tomorrow

A Sabic Innovative Plastics product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 17, 2006

Vehicle designs for the emerging Chinese market and new ideas for the unique properties of plastics scooped the top awards at the Royal College of Art Plasticon competition.

Vehicle designs for the emerging Chinese market and new ideas for the unique properties of plastics scooped the top awards on 6th April 2006 at the GE sponsored Royal College of Art Plasticon competition.

RCA students mingled with leading international figures from the automotive design industry, and GE representatives at the lively awards ceremony at the RCA HQ in Kensington, London.

Judging was so tight two winning teams which consisted of a total of eight different nationalities were announced, rather than a single award, with each successful team being rewarded with a trip to New York and a meeting with the GE Design Council.

The first winners to be announced from the podium were the Material Icons team.

This group of students, Ana Zadnik, Flavien Dachet, Daniel Sjoholm and Yuko Kanemura, concentrated on the unique properties of plastic and explored different ways to manipulate it to create new textures, patterns and lighting effects.

Their ideas included a car featuring copper sheets laminated in thermochromatic plastic, which changes colour as the vehicle heats up, and a "celebrity car" for Icelandic star Bjork, using the colours of Iceland for inspiration.

The second winning RCA team was the Mobility Icons - China team, who were challenged to create a suitable mode of transport for this emerging market.

After a trip to China, the team of Filip Krnja, Ehsan Maghaddampour and Jamie Tomkins developed vehicles for residents of an imaginary tower block - the Beijing Boom Tower.

These ranged from a luxury concept car for the penthouse residents, a taxi design for the middle level residents with concertina doors for the crowded Chinese streets, and a new hybrid bike with interchangeable parts for the working class at the entry level.

Individual prizes were also presented to Julien Cueff, Chanwie Park and Matthew Croft.

Each individual award winner received an Apple i-Pod.

GE Vice President and General Manager of GE Plastics Automotive Division Greg Adams who presented the prizes said that GE was pleased to be involved with the automotive designers of the future.

He foresaw that design would be of increasing importance to the automotive industry and plastics would play a vital part in this development.

Adams commented on how plastic materials currently accounted for up to 10% of all vehicles, but this%age would increase greatly in the future.

17 graduate students from the RCA's Vehicle Design Department and three from RCA's Textiles Department took part in the three month assignment to imagine the future of automotive design in plastics.

The Plasticon programme divided students into teams of three and four for research into specific scenarios including emerging generations, emerging markets, auto segment redefinition, formal freedom and function integration.

Once the groups had completed an analysis and reached conclusions, each team member designed and modelled a personal interpretation of the scenario.

GE advisors worked closely with RCA staff and students to provide guidance and resources.

RCA Rector and Vice-Provost Professor Sir Christopher Frayling was also at the awards event, and praised the quality of designs.