Key details
Date
- 19 December 2021
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 1 minute
Intelligent Mobility MA student Mingwei Liu has been announced by Swedish electric performance car brand Polestar as the winner in the student category of The Polestar Design Contest. Mingwei’s winning design, ‘Glad to be dirty’, is a car that tackles local pollution with on-board, externally visible air filters.
Key details
Date
- 19 December 2021
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 1 minute
The vehicle is a small, simple geometric car with an architectural interpretation on the Polestar design vocabulary. It has a core side panel that displays the progressively dirty air filter, showing how much the car has cleaned the environment as it drives along. It allows the user to feel proud of driving a ‘dirty car’. This design encourages people to embrace the process of cleaning the air, making a difference to the quality of their shared environment.
The Polestar Design Contest is open to both professional and student designers to showcase innovative thinking that encourages positive change in society, including responses to the ongoing climate crisis. The theme, chosen by CEO of Polestar Thomas Ingenlath, for this year’s contest was ‘progressive’.
“Sustainability is an area of growing interest for RCA's Intelligent Mobility MA and students and it is therefore especially rewarding for Mingwei Liu's work to be recognised by Polestar – who are themselves a leader in this space.”
Head of Programme, MA Intelligent Mobility
Mingwei Liu’s winning design is available to view virtually via an in-car app in Polestar 2, developed exclusively for the contest, on the Polestar website, and in-person in selected Polestar Spaces around the world.