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Exploring the Future of Driving at London's Roundhouse

Design the future by looking to the past

Part of The Future Shapers Project

It's been 100 years since the first BMW model went into production. In the century that has followed, the BMW Group has created iconic vehicles and pioneered new technology.

With MINI, it has always been about how design and technology is changing our ability to express our individuality – through personalisation and more choice. As part of an exploration into the future of personalisation, and as part of BMW Group's centenary celebrations, MINI is turning its design prowess to 2030, and the cars we'll be driving.

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Let's be honest, future gazing is a bit a fluffy. There are things we can predict in the short term with relative certainty–manned missions to Mars and a cure for certain cancers spring to mind–but once we get to even a meagre fifty years in the future, things get very woolly indeed. Even the best futurologists have only been able to chart the evolution of current technology and the resulting effects, and anything further than that is just speculation.

This creates some obvious uncertainties for anyone trying to design for this future. How do you create technology for a world when you don't know what it looks like?

Luckily, despite a world that is changing at a phenomenal pace, a few things are set to remain the same, and the human psyche is one of them. In fact, it's elements of hardwired human behaviour that present some of the largest challenges for emerging tech ideas–the sharing economy being one of them. The human instinct to hoard, to own their own possessions, is more than just a learned element of western society. It's ingrained in us from birth: just ask any of the exasperated parents who have to bribe or force their child to give up toys.

So how do you reconcile a set human capacity with a demand for change, imposed by overcrowding and societal challenges?

For its Future Shapers project, Mini took a new approach. Turning its eye to psychology, MINI set about creating a car for 2030 with design rooted in human behaviour. Realising that this sharing economy is the future, their concept placed personalisation first and foremost, creating a vehicle that feels like your own yet is able to adapt to any driver.

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Last Monday at the Roundhouse in London, they wheeled the prototype out to an audience of eager futurists. At first glance, the familiar lines belie its extreme redesign. While we've seen cars with various personalised settings for users before, we soon realised this was a radical new look at transport. For starters, the personalisation isn't limited to the interior. It goes a step further, turning the exterior panels into a vehicle for expression. As a driver steps towards it, the entire body changes to their colour, and the seats, steering wheel, and pedals adjust to their preferred shape. Then the fun starts.

The car is built with user interface front and centre – literally. Gone is the classic notion of the dashboard, replaced largely by heads-up displays and an assortment of interesting materials. The designers have spurned plastics in favour of brass, citing the aging process, or patina, as a key feature of the interior.

Regardless of the specifics, it's the thought behind the design process that captures imaginations. While a thousand futurologists at a thousand typewriters might not be able to accurately predict the future, it's safe to say that design ingrained with human psychology can only breed the technology that will complement our lives.

See the rest of The Future Shapers Project here.