FIAT Arca (Competition Architecture & Mobility)

Sapper, Michele De Lucchi, Gillo Dorfles and Denis Santachiara met the students and gave them the design brief.
This was to design car interiors taking into account: the companies image and positioning in the European market; features of the target market; use of innovative materials; use of recyclable materials; use and incorporation of ICT (young target users); comfort; safety; person / machine / environment interaction; behaviour patterns of new mobile generations. The students were given six months to produce their designs, after which the jury comprising the coordinator, teachers at each of the universities, and Fiat Auto managers, drew up three judgement categories for each of the participating universities, giving a shortlist of 36 designs, and selected the three winning universities. The winning designs are published here. …

Arca is unusual for the care that has been lavished on its materials, in order to create the image of a young, innovative car. Plastic parts combine with coloured fabrics and high tech fittings. Each of the four movable seats has multimedia outlets for laptops and electronics. The rationalized dashboard is a single unit containing all the on-board- instrumentation. The upper part of the car and the hatch-back are totally transparent, making for excellent inside-outside visibility and a whole new outside-inside perception of the car.



ABITARE Novembre 2000