My bachelor’s graduation project involves a conceptual car design in collaboration with Honda, the automobile company. An interior design with a foldable tea table hidden behind the rear seat and light effects were developed to meet the requirements of my parents in line with my brief from Honda.

With the help of questionnaires (standard ones from Honda), user interviews and observations, I was able to learn more about my parents’ car-using behaviour and find out their specific requirements. A small collage was made to represent their identity and main activities with the car. 

As office workers living in a megacity, my parents often have a desire to temporarily escape from the noisy world into the peaceful nature. Therefore, at the weekend they usually drive into mountains or to the lake, riding bicycles there. They love relaxing after intense exercise with a cup of tea from a thermos. 

After understanding their needs better, I decided to design a car interior, which can offer them lounge chairs for relaxing after exercising. A hidden tea table can be unfolded when they want to enjoy a cup of tea in the sunset in the forest. The package of the car was first designed as below:

In sketching phase, I found it very difficult to combine new functions into the standard structure of the car interior. I drew many sketches and tried to find out the best structure solution, while still ensuring engineering feasibility and security of the car.

For the styling of the interior, I applied the conclusion of the User-research. My stylistic approach is based on the stone and stream, which can be easily found in nature in south China. 

I chose the color purple, black and off-white for my design. 

Purple is the main color of the sunset. It conveys a modern, elegant and vital feeling, which also represents my parents’ active living status and their attitude to life.

Off-white is the main color of the stones in the south of China and goes well with purple.

The animated lighting has two themes to choose from - “Bamboos” and “Steam”. Both light effects aim at creating a natural and peaceful atmosphere in the car, while my parents enjoy tea in the nature. The animations’ playing speed follows the rhythm of the background music.

A Head-up-display was inserted into the center console since it is a design for 2030.

A tea table is hidden behind the rear seat for cooking Kong fu tea, which is one of the most popular traditional tea ceremonies in the south of china. It conveys a value of enjoyment. The tea tray was designed with traces, so that the water can run out of the table.