Pasadena's Art Center College of Design operates on a trimester system and graduates three classes a year. Car Design News headed north of LA to attend the Fall/Winter undergraduate degree show.
Unlike the smaller Summer class, in which six students showed a wide variety of projects across various forms of transportation, the Fall/Winter cohort featured 11 students, plus the work of visiting professional graduate, Ken Nagasaka.
Marcel Santos
Disney Monorail
Santos is interested in immersive theme-park rides, and his design for a monorail to whisk locals from Los Angeles' Union Station to Disneyland is intended as an introduction to the Magic Kingdom. The three-car maglev train travels at up to 80mph (130kph), making the trip to Anaheim just a short 15-minute ride. The cars are windowless, and each would be themed around a different Disney movie or experience. A sculptural VIP observation lounge is placed at the front of the monorail, above the streamlined cockpit.
Luis Jimenez
Hyundai Cable Car
In this Hyundai-sponsored project, Jimenez proposes an alternative to the jammed freeway commute - a new kind of two-seat cable car. Designed to be placed along major traffic routes in and out of the city, the airfoil-shaped units would be mounted on three cables and be largely autonomous. Only after reaching an exiting point near its destination would it revert to a driver's car, uncoupling from the cable system, where it would become a compact city car.
Laura Jonason
Kia One
Jonason's project seeks to address the well-documented decline in the affection for the car amongst younger people. Her project is intended for younger drivers just starting college or a career. The vehicle transforms with them as they transition through life stages that require different configurations of this small car. The car's modular body panels, seating, interior materials and so on would take advantage of 3D printing technologies to allow a variety of bold sculptural elements to be added, giving a highly personal work of motoring art.
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