• by Tanya Gazdik , July 6, 2021

Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln brand and Hyundai Motor Group have each recently partnered with design schools in separate collaborations. 

Lincoln launched an innovative mentorship program with ArtCenter College of Design in Southern California The brand asked a select group of students to imagine how the future of Lincoln’s“Quiet Flight” ethos -- beauty, human, gliding and sanctuary -- might be represented in vehicles 20 years from now. 

ArtCenter College grooms future car designer,  and Ford has hired many of them. The college and Ford have collaborated on a variety of scholarships and sponsored studios for 50 years.

The virtual mission was to imagine not only Lincoln vehicles of 2040 and beyond, but the world in which those vehicles would live – even the lives of the people who would drive them. 

Ford created a three-and-a-half minute video detailing the project. 

“It’s very important for students to immerse themselves in understanding the brand culture, its heritage and its promise,” says Marek Djordjevic, transportation design professor ArtCenter College of Design, in the video.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Group and the Rhode Island School of Design are collaborating to research the future of cities. 

The joint study examines new relationships between advanced technologies, public environments and personal experiences. Four study areas — surfaces, societies, futures and textile research around “adaptive ecologies” — were explored by students and faculty and Hyundai researchers.

The study builds upon partnership established between Hyundai and the college in 2020 which applied the school’s biomimicry solutions to the question of future mobility.  In this second year of partnership, five faculty members at the design school leveraged their expertise to explore study areas supported by 32 students.

The collaboration aligns with Hyundai Motor Group’s vision of becoming a future-shaping innovator via open innovation, according to the automaker. The groupwide collaboration includes the participation of both Hyundai Motor and Kia’s global design centers.

Staff at the college’s Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab worked with Hyundai and RISD faculty and students on biodesign topics, including biomimicry, biomaterials and biosystems applications. Additional support in research activities came from Co-Works, RISD’s interdisciplinary research lab focused on emerging technologies.

This summer, 18 researchers who have previously participated in the Hyundai Research Collaborative will spend eight weeks of intensive, continued activity on expanding Future of Cities research from spring 2021 through collaboration with the design team at Hyundai Motor and Kia. An exhibition is planned for fall to share the results of these collaborations.