Post-SUV · Automotive co-creation
What comes after a shape everyone knows?
A familiar vehicle category was the starting point, not the answer. In a one-day co-creation workshop, people translated what they need from a car into new forms they could discuss, change and compare.
- Role
- Workshop concept, exercises & synthesis
- Timeframe
- 2025
- Context
- Future mobility for a global car manufacturer
- Status
- Workshop and concept report delivered
01 / Starting point
The category carried more assumptions than answers.
A sport utility vehicle can promise space, a commanding view and flexibility. But its familiar silhouette also fixes expectations about size, presence and purpose. The project asked how to explore the next shape without simply styling another SUV.
At Star, I helped plan the project and designed the workshop exercises and sequence. After the session, I synthesised the results into a report. The format let people’s everyday priorities influence the forms they made, rather than asking them to react only to polished concepts at the end.
If the vehicle category changes, what must stay useful?
02 / From needs to form
The workshop made choices visible.
Talking about the future can stay abstract. The exercises gave people a sequence of ways to express a need, turn it into a vehicle proportion and compare it with alternatives. Each step left a visible artefact for the next one.
- 01
Start with use
Describe situations and prioritise the needs a vehicle should serve.
- 02
Compose a form
Build silhouettes and moodboards from physical fragments.
- 03
Make it tangible
Work with a designer to translate the direction into a model.
- 04
Discuss the trade-offs
Put alternatives side by side and make preferences discussable.
A simplified view of the workshop sequence. Detailed participant material and artefacts are in the protected case.
03 / Making together
Participants could change the object in front of them.
Collage was deliberately rough. It let people talk about a vehicle’s proportions without pretending that a sketch was a finished car. A designer then used the group’s choices to build a three-dimensional form while the discussion was still alive.
The shift from paper to a shared model matters: an idea becomes something the group can point at, challenge and revise together.
04 / Design tension
Every proportion makes a promise and a compromise.
A more expressive profile may feel agile. A taller cabin can make a different promise about usable room. Neither answer is inherently right. The useful design conversation is about what each shape gains, what it gives up and which needs matter most.
A balanced sketch keeps both ideas in play.
This interactive drawing explains a design trade-off. It does not reproduce a workshop result or a proposed production vehicle.
05 / Directions
The value was a set of choices, not a single picture.
The workshop generated distinct vehicle directions. The final report connected those forms to the priorities and discussions behind them, giving the client more than a beauty rendering to react to.
Designers refined the live models into higher-fidelity visualisations after the workshop. Those images helped communicate the directions, but their finish also changed how easy it was to compare one with another.
A workshop, tangible artefacts and a synthesis report—not a production car or a validated market forecast.
06 / What remains
The next test would need a fairer comparison.
The outcome was a set of co-created directions and a report for the client. The workshop surfaced questions worth taking forward; it was not evidence that one form would win in the market.
Reflection. I would make the representations more comparable before asking people to choose between them. Otherwise a polished image may be rewarded for its finish, not for the qualities of the underlying idea. I would also test the concepts against everyday scenarios, beyond the most memorable exceptional trips.
Open question: which priorities still hold when people live with the trade-offs over time?
- Team
- Project planning and synthesis at Star; workshop delivery with client designers, moderators and participants. Individual credits are held with the protected project material.
- References
- Internal workshop materials and synthesis report, 2025. Public text and diagram are anonymised editorial adaptations.