Written by It’s considered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when a design student gets to work with one of the top automotive brands in the world. DYPDC’s design students have just had one such opportunity. They recently worked on a project for one of the most successful brands of General Motors.
All our senior postgraduate students worked on their individual projects. The brief given to them was to design a small, B-Segment car for India for the year 2020-25. In all 20 models were presented, out of which 3 models were shortlisted. Finally, one model was chosen for further development. The selection committee included industry experts and academicians like, Dilip Chhabria (who needs no introduction), Matteo Conti from Northumbria, UK, and Elmer Grondelle from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
Please find below a brief bio of Elmer and Matteo
Elmer holds a BA from the Dutch Royal College of Art, an IT degree and an MBA in Design Management from the University of Westminster. Elmer has over 25 years of experience in Automotive Design and the Design of Design processes in a range of automotive companies such as Ford, BMW, Lamborghini, Kymco and Hyundai. Currently he freelances as a Strategic Automotive Designer and has a position at the Faculty of Industrial Design of Delft University of Technology where he teaches Automotive Design and Strategy, and is the program manager for Advanced Automotive Design.
Matteo has been a senior lecturer in Transportation Design at Northumbria University. During this time he also led the course between 2005 and 2007 before being also involved in the teaching provision of the Design for Industry course. This Italian bi-lingual academic has been creating various successful industrial partnerships with prestigious design consultancies (Concept Group International, Drive, Iveco, Jaguar, Pininfarina, Stile Bertone, and Visteon) over the years to carry out collaborative projects and secure student placements.
Matteo is a specialist in transportation design practice and in the area of low carbon vehicles (LCVs) as he is the Lead Design for the High Value Low Carbon (HVLC) R&D unit at Northumbria University. His previous engineering background working in robotics is particularly useful in the development of LCVs as he aims to produce proof of concepts, prototypes and pre-production designs. HVLC’s operating model is enabling Matteo’s development of ongoing industrial and academic collaboration, new postgraduate curricula, and commercial value for business both through contract research and CPD.
The PG final year students are now busy designing the interiors of the chosen model, plus are also continuing with their personal project. The theme for the personal project is to answer transportation needs for the year 2020. Students are free to design models for public/personal transportation.
These are such exciting times at DYPDC. Our students are well on their way to changing the face of transportation in India.