From the very first glance, customers sense that their journey will be relaxing and they can take time out from their stressful everyday lives to enjoy it. They deliver on that promise with comfort derived not just from their material design but above all from their look and feel. To my mind, their formal aesthetics, beauty and comfort extend an irresistible invitation the moment you open the door. What sets the first-class seats in the Audi urbansphere concept¹ apart? Instead, our ambition in creating a first-class seat is to pleasantly surprise customers, first wowing them with its looks and then impressing them with how it’s still comfortable eight hours later. For us, soft doesn’t translate as a seat you sink into. The challenge was to create an exceptionally comfy seat that is also clearly cast in the Audi mould but – not to overstate the point – doesn’t look like a cloud. During the co-creation process with Chinese customers, they indicated that they wanted soft, comfortable seats. In designing the Audi urbansphere concept¹, our focus was on the Chinese market. When designing the seats for a new study such as the Audi urbansphere concept¹, what requirements do you need to meet?
In a word, a seat should give you no sensory feedback. It should act like a second skin, cooling you down when you’re too hot and warming you up when you feel cold. To put its function in the simplest terms, the seat should give you everything you need so that you’re more or less unaware of it. That means the seats interact with the interior as a whole and echo the Audi design idiom’s clean lines and commanding surfaces, which also define the exterior look. A seat like this would be equally at home in a living room.įorm follows function: Is that even truer for seats?Īll aspects of our design must enter into a symbiotic relationship within a clear aesthetic framework. Thanks to their extensive functions, they are not only an integral part of the vehicle interior, but also sculptures in their own right. I like to use a good pair of shoes as a comparison: No matter how stylish they are, you’ll only enjoy wearing them if they’re comfortable. That’s why the design, ergonomics and comfort it provides are hugely important. Throughout that time, you’re in closest contact with your seat. After all, if you spend a lot of time on the road, you want to be able to cocoon in a quiet, private and attractive environment. That means creating a homely feeling of wellbeing in the vehicle is a priority. That’s because nowadays your time in a car needn’t be focused exclusively on getting from A to B. Concept cars are increasingly spotlighting seats. Can you still call your contribution to the car a vehicle seat or has it now moved into the realm of furniture design?īoth. Rafael, the new Audi urbansphere concept¹ is a lounge on wheels.
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