ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the need for a new design discipline, and a human-centred formal realm for urban vehicles. In terms of discipline, vehicle design has become a mere tool of an industry, a reflection of a past that is not able to conceive anything beyond 'look-at-me' mobile boxes. The chapter reflects on the role of design and its influence in the re-humanisation of urban environments through unexpected sources: traditionally individualistic vehicles. It begins with an overview of how the car evolved from a human-centred solution to the money-maker of today, and continues with an overt criticism of the design practices derived from this industrial reality. The chapter provides an incursion into a new design approach and seeks to illuminate the ambivalent nature of vehicles (private–public) both as a challenge and opportunity for new creations. Finally, it points towards a new scheme, where mobility affordances will be integrated with contextual values in a way which might create re-humanised and dynamic environments.
