CIID/Toyota – Window to the World – at Copenhagen Design Week
Friday, 2nd Sep 2011
Window to the World (CIID/Toyota) from CIID on Vimeo.
The Window to the World concept will be on display at the Design Zone, Kvæsthusmolen (the main exhibition area) for the duration of Copenhagen Design Week. The exhibition will open at 6:30pm on Friday 2nd, September and will run until the 6th.
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Press Release: New Experiences Enabled by the Car
The integrated structure of Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) incorporates education, research and consultancy. The Consultancy works independently and allows the development of pragmatic, real-world ideas and works on business focused cases for industry. CIID worked with Toyota Motor Europe’s Kansei Design Division who interact with Toyota’s R&D, Marketing and Design. Kansei Design plays an active role in the development of advanced models and vehicle development.
The objective of the collaboration between Kansei Design and CIID was to support an ideation phase and develop concepts focusing on new experiences enabled by the car. The concepts needed to be in line with Toyotas corporate value and embody Japanese Culture. During the project, CIID went through a rapid and iterative design process, where the focus was not solely on creating concepts that were strong in terms of visual aesthetics but rather on creating experiences that were meaningful in nature, as well as elegant solutions.
The final outcome consisted of two developed solutions that were prototyped: one grounded to the near future and the other, a more speculative and provacative long term solution. In this project, the process was equally as rich as the final solutions. Each stage of the process played an important role. The inspiration and user research gathered in the initial stages of the project supported the concept generation, igniting ideas and giving depth to the solutions. The concept generation phase facilitated a collaboration not only between CIID and Kansei Design, but with other designers and engineers from Toyota Motor Europe. This exchange of ideas meant the concepts were diverse in nature due to the cross-discipline perspective of the people involved.
The concept re-defines the relationship between passengers in a vehicle and the world around it by transforming the vehicles windows into an interactive interface. Using augmented reality, what used to be a pane of glass, begins to provide passengers with information about landmarks and other objects as they go past. The window can also be used as a canvas for drawings, which then interacts with the passing environment.
Engineers and designers from TMEs Kansei1 Design Division teamed up with the CIID consultancy to develop this concept in the context of near-future mobility. Instead of creating a concept simply with strong visual aesthetics, they aimed to create beautiful and intangible experiences to address specific needs and desires, to bring genuine value to the vehicles passengers.
Through the latest advances in augmented technology, TME Kansei Division and CIID developed five concepts for Toyotas Window to the World:
* Drawing in Motion using the car window as a canvas, passengers can draw, using their fingers, and see the images integrating with the outside world as the vehicle moves along.
*Zooming into captured moments in time the window becomes a screen for passengers to zoom-in on outside objects to see it in a brand new perspective.
*Translating the world in a local language passengers are exposed to new languages and cultures as they can select elements outside the window and receive a real-time translation in a local language.
*Augmented Distances pinpoint landmarks in the distance and the window will augment the relative distance to the car on the window surface.
*Virtual Constellations the cars panoramic roof displays virtual constellations and information about them with the actual sky as a background.
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(Please note: The video used to promote this vehicle concept is a simulation filmed in static, controlled environments. All health and safety requirements were met for the described conditions. Toyota will never promote unsafe behaviors, and will always encourage passengers to fasten their seatbelts).