RCA partners with Lexus to design the future luxury mobility

Students will explore new vehicle architectures to meet the needs of societal and demographic changes in European cities and new vehicle usage models. The students will also be challenged to re-imagine the role Lexus brand could play in the European mobility landscape beyond the next two decades, addressing issues of sustainability, future lifestyles and how emerging technologies could help shape a relevant and impactful vision for the brand.

Lexus will directly support the project with mentorship from the leading creatives at its European Design Development centre, ED2, in the South of France, giving the students a deeper insight into real-world advanced automotive design thinking and techniques.  At a kick-off meeting with the students at the RCA in Battersea, ED2 representatives gave a briefing on the Lexus brand and its L-finesse design philosophy which encompasses refinement, anticipation, simplicity and awareness.  They also explained the importance of the brand’s Japanese heritage and its human centric design approach.

The programme is scheduled to run for four months, during which time students will research future scenarios to produce informed design perspectives about and how and where the Lexus brand might evolve. This will provide the starting point for design concept propositions, developed through tutorials and group workshops, leading to the creation of 2D visions in film and digital media and 3D models and experiments.

The three best projects will be selected for further development and the production of exhibition-quality renderings in film and scale models. These will form part of a concluding project show at the RCA, together with all the related digital media work, in January 2022.