A lace ‘cover’ of the new Seat city car has us thinking about local production and materials
It has no engine, no metal or glass, and has a whiff of your grandma’s house about it, but as part art project, part materials mix-up, Seat has produced a lace ‘cover’ of its new city car.
The lace Seat ‘Mii by Mango’ is a marketing gimmick, designed to link up with fashion chain Mango that had a hand in the design of its road-going twin, but unassumingly it asks a question about sustainable design.
While a Spanish lace replica might just be high-street statement, like the 3D printed car from Local Motors it asks questions about using local materials and production to save costs and resources.
The project took 45 metres of nude coloured cotton lace
and 25 kilos of resin to set it
According to Seat, it is the only company in its sector with the capacity to design, develop, manufacture and market cars all within its home territory of Spain.
A member of the Volkswagen Group, its headquarters are in Martorell, near Barcelona, while it also has a nearby technical centre, bringing together more than 900 engineers, making it the top industrial R&D investor in the country.
While lace is not a serious idea for exterior panels (although it must have some structural strengths when set in resin?), and the motivation for the model wasn’t intended necessarily to raise questions about sustainable materials, it does makes you think about what would be possible when considering more local means of design and production.
Anyway, while you’re musing over this, you can watch the time-lapse of the project’s lead designer Ashley Joiner working up the full size replica car made entirely from lace.
//www.youtube.com/embed/rZtJcMDLPsc
