BMW Group subsidiary Designworks has announced it is to open a new studio in Santa Monica, California, where it will draw inspiration from the surrounding environment of Silicon Beach and its design, media and technology companies. Designworks will work on behalf of the BMW Group to develop auto interiors spaces and components, and provide “inspiration in the fields of innovation, design and sustainability” across automotive and other industries.
“Santa Monica is a test bed for the innovative and sustainable mobility solutions of tomorrow,” said Adrian van Hooydonk, senior vice president, BMW Group Design and a former head of Designworks. “Designworks will generate valuable impetus, inspiration and new ideas for the design of the BMW Group brands right here.”
Covering 16,500ft2, the new design studio is the largest of the three global Designworks studios, which includes buildings in Munich, Germany, and Shanghai, China. The structure and equipment at each facility is designed to support the transformation from physical to digital design and development.
“Our new studio allows us to fully exploit the freedoms digitalization gives us,” said Holger Hampf, head of Designworks. “Personal interaction remains a focal point, but we do work differently in Santa Monica: In this new workspace, our processes are geared toward virtual communication, and we are able to bring the results of our work to life for clients in an entirely new way.”
As a BMW Group subsidiary, Designworks is involved in a multitude of internal design projects. By sharing ideas and expertise with external clients from other sectors, the design studio is capable of delivering an outside-in perspective to inform and enrich the development of the company’s user centric approach.
Through this process, Designworks developed two seat studies for BMW which combined both sustainability and design. Working collaboratively with startups, the studio is experimenting with brand new production methods and environmentally compatible, recyclable materials, including bacteria-based, plastic-free and non-animal textiles which provide high-quality looking and feeling surfaces with a high durability.
