A driving force diversifies interior design
Technology and style blur line between home and car
Homestyle interiors are climbing into vehicles.
“Essentially, the car is becoming another living space,” confirms HGTV Canada designer Vanessa Suppa. It’s a trend she expects will be evident at this year’s Canadian International AutoShow, on until Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Suppa adds that the move toward home-like design will be further fuelled by driverless cars.
“People know that good design influences how they feel in their homes. Naturally, they want that in their cars,” she says.
Elevating the notion of a car as living space is the Oasis, an electric concept car that can be either self or manually driven. It’s made by Swiss automotive company Rinspeed, along with a host of partners.
To start, it’s very nimble: wheels can turn on almost zero radius. It’s super-connected, able to alert its driver that Facebook friends have recently liked a nearby restaurant and can reserve a table, if desired. For the Instagram crowd, the car’s on-board assistant can take a photo diary of a trip.
And then there’s its ability to switch from being driven to driverless, allowing the Oasis, for instance, to chauffeur its owner to the airport and then head to the arrivals terminal for a just-in-time pickup.
Elegant design elements include aluminum seat bases, cool white surfaces, leather with bright edging and a real wood floor.
The windshield can display virtual and augmented realities using holographic laser projection technology. A rear window includes not just the usual safety lights, but also a micro delivery box (think pizza or takeout) that can be cooled or heated as needed.
Autonomous cars such as the Oasis will see designers further blurring of the line between car and home, speculates Michael Stapleton, director of interior design for GMC.
“If there’s no steering wheel, you can change orientation and configuration of the interior,” Stapleton says. “So, yes, you will see us experimenting with driving spaces.
“But it will always come back to making it more comfortable and well-designed for the occupant,” he says, adding good car and home design have always shared the same basic principles.
A practical example, he says, is automotive textiles. “We’re spending a little bit more to make sure that they are more soil-repellent. People like fabric, but one of their concerns is that they will hold up. So we pick for both fashion and durability.”
As with interior design, he says colour and shape are used to guide the eye by encouraging “visual flow.”
In the black interior of GMC’s compact SUV Terrain, use of colour also signals whether an expanse or feature is soft or hard. For instance, accents on surface treatments — as in a passenger-side air-vent that’s done in a premium-finish aluminum. And as in home decor, natural woods are emerging in vehicles. But the big, beautiful slabs of woods seen in dramatic dining tables still need to be “translated” for vehicles, Stapleton says.
Glossy finishes increase durability, he adds, but lower sheens now denote quality and luxury. “Whenever you drive the gloss down on leather and plastic, it becomes more premi- um,” he says.
For highest-end offerings, interior colours and finishes are selected with especially careful consideration. In GMC’s full-sized luxury SUV Denali, Stapleton says, “softer, lighter colours, beautiful wood and aluminum in a slightly different tint are subtle things that have a big impact.”
And, in a case of a reverse influence between home and automotive design, British automaker Bentley now has a line of home decor and furniture. The pieces incorporate the brand’s silhouettes in a collection inspired by its vehicles and suited to a contemporary London penthouse.