Mobility

On the occasion of the fifth annual conference on global urbanism at the Columbia University, New York, Catriona McLaughlin talked to thinker Saskia Sassen about the relation between invisible and visible mobility, the power of open-source-systems and her ongoing research on “urbanizing technology”.

In the Audi-Forum in Ingolstadt the teams in this year’s Audi Urban Future Award allowed the public a first look at their research.

Big Data, sharing systems and super-trains: At the “Mobilities in Cities” conference in New York urban planners, architects and transportation experts met to swap ideas on past, present and future mobility.

Can a KIA “Picanto” write design history? Is there even any justification for cars’ continued existence in the future? Journalist Niklas Maak, philosopher Martin Gessmann and architect Max Schwitalla sat down in Cologne to discuss the most popular form of auto-motion.

How is urban space changing with piloted parking? Can one estimate what impact infrastructure projects will have on urban space? These are the questions the Boston team are tackling, in an effort to expand the limits of the mobility market.

Phone, city, house – everything becomes smart. Also cars? How does the digitalization of our everyday life change car functions and the requirements autos must meet? This is the focus the ethnographer Sung Gul Hwang, the urban planner Cho Taek Yeon and the product designer Yeongkyu Yoo.

Mexico City is renowned for its gridlocks. Each day, commuters spend more than two hours in traffic jams. José Castillo, Carlos Gershenson and Gabriella Gomez-Mont are hunting for solutions to this problem.

If you need to get from A to B in Berlin you need above all two things: patience and time. Architect Max Schwitalla, neuroscientist Arndt Pechstein and transit-manager Paul Friedli want to change this, and in their efforts have investigated the swarming behavior of animals.

Almost everything is a challenge in this megalopolis with over 20 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area that includes 40 municipalities of the State of Mexico. Alejandro Hernández Gálvez, chief editor at the mexican architecture magazine Arquine, explains why.

More and more city dwellers are taking to the roads on bicycles that rely on electric motors to add zest to the daily commute. Like no other, “Footloose” by Korean automotive supplier Mando is emblematic of a new generation of e-bikes poised to capture the bike market. So what has it got to offer?

Assuming the BMW’s i3 electric car is an international success, it will no doubt influence how we buy and use cars – and get from A to B – in the future. Ranges, service packages and even refueling could soon be dictated by the concepts of carmakers.

Technology, safety, design – there’s a lot happening in the field of automotive lighting. Lighting technology is advancing in leaps and bounds. While the designers aren’t always creating new currents, the complex forms of automotive lighting will definitely impact on other products.

What will the cities of tomorrow look like? How will we move in them? And what role will digital media play in the process? A discussion with Jürgen Mayer H. and Eric Höweler at the “Schaustelle” in Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne tried to find some answers.

To construct a fun car you need more than a great idea and a good mood. As can be seen from a comparison between the unique “Méhari” Citroën and Jean-Marie Massaud’s concept for a Toyota “Me.We”.

Even though current automobiles may resort to all kinds of make-up, in the first instance, what really counts as a trademark is the radiator grille. A little guide to the various different types.

“Learning from Las Vegas” taught us that anyone building in a location where people rush past needs to communicate simple messages. This premise no doubt served Frankfurt-based architects Schneider+Schumacher as a basis for their design. Their highway church speaks the language of a billboard, yet still surprises with its architectural diversity.

Our cities are already bursting at the seams. We need new forms of mobility to shape life in the megacities of tomorrow. In New York experts from Audi teamed up with architects, urban planners and academics to seek answers to one of the most pressing questions of the future.

Not just for aviation enthusiasts: The photo book “Swissair Souvenirs” affords readers an insight into all areas of civil aviation and at the same time makes for a new piece of photography history.

Beyond the hustle and bustle of the fair, BMW joined forces with the Bouroullec brothers and presented an installation that aims to articulate the automotive marque’s new orientation toward sustainability and electromobility. A chat with Head of Design Adrian van Hooydonk sheds light on an unconventional vision of mobility for the future.

Developed as part of the “Audi Urban Future Initiative” and the “Audi Urban Future Award”, the “mooove.com” online platform and the accompanying context-based search engine we.moove.com first went live in October 2012. Anyone can use them to find out more about how our cities and metropolitan regions will look in 2030.

Hamburg has splashed out on a new subway line with two new, well-designed train stations. One is for the most part still closed since there are no finished buildings close by. But one day there will be thousands using the new route to travel through the city. That’s a promise!

How great an influence does the design of a car really have on the buyer? Thomas Edelmann spoke to Adrian van Hooydank, Head of Design Development at BMW Group, about new types of cars, emotions and functionality.

What direction is automotive design taking in times of hybridization? A visit to Paris’ “Mondial de l’Automobil”, the most important European automotive motor show of the year.

Can you even “design” parking lots? In the USA, where there is more paved space for parking cars than anywhere else in the world, the calls to take these “lost spaces” more seriously in their role as public spaces are growing louder and louder.

Parking is by definition the temporary placing of vehicles on a space foreseen for this. In reality, however, the automobile does not get placed somewhere temporarily: they get driven temporarily. So where to put the rising number of vehicles not running? In car parks!

About 70 percent of the world’s population will in future live in megacities. For the Audi Urban Future Award 2012 six architectural offices are casting an eye over the metropolitan regions of Boston/Washington, São Paulo, Istanbul, Mumbai, the Pearl River Delta and Tokyo – and coming up with new ideas for developing mobility in urban space.

In “Colour One for Mini” Scholten & Baijings have created an installation, that conceptually challenges common conventions in surrounding the car. The Dutch designer duo dissected a “Mini One”, revamping the individual parts with new colors and textures. The outcome created a space where our associations with the past and future of the automobile were free to run wild.

Chief designer, founder of the Porsche Design Studio as well as Chairman of the Supervisory Board – these are just some of the outstanding stages in the life of Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, who died in Salzburg on April 5.

Currently hardly a car-maker has prioritized special topics. Instead, cars are on show that can potentially do everything. Give you a sporting drive, be safe off-road, and look like a limousine.

Demographics, infrastructure and resources are key factors driving urban development. Audi is for the second time holding the Audi Urban Future Award, an architecture prize designed to foster research into the mechanisms of urbanity.

They have been fueling automotive advancement for around 100 years now: gas stations. In Christof Vieweg's informative and richly illustrated book "Volltanken bitte!" we discover that the first gas station was a pharmacy, which brands were once sold, when certain architectural models emerged and what particularly attractive stations look like.

Crisis, what crisis. At the 64th IAA international motor show, the industry is looking to the future with confidence. So how exactly do the designers think the auto of tomorrow will look? You can get an idea by casting a glance at the trade-fair orchestrations and the latest concept cars.

We have always known that Germans love cars. We can only conjecture what kind of fantasies surround the cult object. The exhibition “Fetisch Auto. Ich fahre, also bin ich” (Car fetish – I drive, therefore I am) in Basle provides an insight into the visual images surrounding what is actually a pretty functional object.

Greetings from Legoland: The NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf is showcasing an exhibition about containers, which reveals just how much enthusiasm there currently is in the architecture scene for transportation vessels such as these, but also how thoroughly the beautiful new world of standardized architecture ignores individuality and local circumstances.

Spring is back and the bicycle season starts. Should you want to buy a new vehicle, why not a custom-built one? Then a glance in the book "Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle" is certainly worthwhile.