Hankook Tire is launching the company’s Design Innovation Project for 2018. The project is held every two years to help realize the “infinite possibilities of a tire through designing creative and realistic alternatives to driving.”
The theme for 2018 will be “Extending Future Life Beyond Mobility.
According to the company, the idea behind the theme is that by 2035, “human life is expected to be more connected to systems with technological advances such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Future mobility in this era will likely not be limited to transporting a person to a different location, but will also span to providing new experiences and values to the traditional mobility environment. As such, the participants of the project will be asked to create a new tire concept using autonomous driving technology, proposing a whole new experience to future driving life.”
10 vehicle design majors from UK’s Royal College of Art will be working on the project. The students will be present a 3D model of a future tire, which will include tire, wheel, and exterior design. Some selected entries will be created into animations and actual size mock-ups and will be displayed in September along with an award ceremony. The project will run from January through March.
Hankook has been pushing the vision of future design with the Design Innovation Project since 2012. The most recent project in 2014 featured students from Germany’s University of Design, Engineering and Business in Pforzheim, working on the theme “A Great Challenge for a Great Change.” The project investigated what role tires can play in an era of climate change.
The first iteration of the project was in 2012, with University of Cincinnati students working on the theme of “Connect to the Connected World,” proposing smart mobility for future megacities.
