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The Sintesi
concept car unveiled by Pininfarina at the last edition
of the Geneva Motor Show has won the red dot award
2008 which was presented in Singapore for 'the
excellent quality of its design and the outstanding
innovation of its technological content'. The four door,
four seat sports GT Sintesi was chosen by the judges of
the red dot award – from over 1900 concepts from 48
nations – for encapsulating the essence of the car of
the future in its sleek and aerodynamic silhouette.
While not a study in beauty as an end in itself, the
Sintesi pays more than just lip service to aesthetics,
which are enhanced by uniting the interior and exterior
in a design that shapes the mechanicals – a combination
of fuel cells, drive train components and batteries –
around the requisites for space and safety of the
occupants, the true protagonists of future automotive
scenarios, together with the car itself, envisioned as
part of a vehicular network interconnected by a
decentralised intelligence system devised to create a
new harmony among cars themselves and between cars and
the surrounding environment.
“The Sintesi is
a genuine laboratory on wheels”, says Group president Paolo
Pininfarina. “The red dot award acknowledges the ability of
the Pininfarina design team to set new quality standards for
itself, start again from a clean sheet and tackle the
challenge of creating something with completely new heart,
muscles and brain, something that is extraordinary and
futuristic by today’s criteria but destined to become the
norm in future”.
Red Dot Design
Award
With more than
10,000 submissions from 60 countries, the international “red
dot design award” ranks among the largest and most renowned
design competitions in the world. It is divided into the
“red dot award: product design”, the “red dot award:
communication design” and the “red dot award: design
concept.” The award-winning products are put before an
international public in the red dot design museum.
Each year an
international jury reviews and evaluates the submitted
products according to criteria such as degree of innovation,
functionality and the formal quality. This ensures the
seriousness of the competition and its international
acceptance. The group of jurors is made up of renowned
designers and design experts from all over the world who
reach their decisions on which designs are good enough to
receive a red dot award independently and impartially. The
constellation changes from year to year and guarantees a
high degree of objectivity and reliability.
The award is as
a seal of quality; it stands for membership of the best in
design and business. The winners receive the awards in
person on the occasion of the gala ceremony in the Essen
Aalto-Theater, which is witnessed by more than 1,200 guests.
In addition, the annual “red dot award: product design” also
rewards one design team with the special title of design
team of the year. The award, the “Radius” challenge trophy,
has already been received by the design teams of many
renowned companies, including LG Electronics, adidas, Apple,
Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, Philips, Siemens and Sony.
Red Dot
Design Award 2008, Singapore
On Friday 28
November 2008, Singapore’s creative scene celebrated the
winners of this year’s red dot award: design concept. In
the impressive atmosphere of the red dot design museum in
Singapore the proud winners were honoured in a spectacular
awards presentation in the presence of more than 400
international guests from the design industry. One of the
evening’s highlights was the performance of musician Timothy
O’Dwyer, who created two spectacular pieces especially for
the awards presentation. This year, the 1,906 design
concepts that were handed in for assessment in the red dot
award: design concept came from 49 nations. The high-class
jury consisting of international design experts did not face
an easy task selecting the best concepts given the entries’
high quality standard. The competition managed to increase
its number of entries by 115 per cent this year. This is a
tremendous success, which further emphasises the
significance of the red dot award: design concept within the
red dot design award.
And the red dot: luminary goes to…170 design concepts
received the red dot award. Another 21 were awarded the
‘red dot: best of the best’ for highest design quality and
were thus automatically nominated for the red dot: luminary,
the most outstanding design concept of the whole
competition. This year the coveted distinction went to
“360”, an innovative concept by Francesco Sommacal, which is
a new interpretation of the skateboard developed for extreme
off-road use.
One of the evening’s highlights was without a doubt the
performance of musician Timothy O’Dwyer, who created two
spectacular pieces especially for the awards presentation.
The remarkable performance combined saxophones, electronics,
video and dancers to create a sensational futuristic display
of abstract characters, shimmering fabrics and pulsating
sound, thus reflecting the red dot award: design concept’s
philosophy of providing a glimpse of the future. Following
the awards presentation, Ken Koo, the president of red dot
Singapore, unveiled the red dot award: design concept
yearbook 2008/2009, which documents the most outstanding
trends and innovations of the competition. He also opened
the special exhibition of the red dot award: design concept,
which will be on display for one year in the red dot
Traffic.
Pininfarina
Sintesi
Sintesi, displayed for the first at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, is a sports car
with four doors and four seats that was developed with a highly innovative
approach: it does not consider the car as a shape that covers the mechanicals,
but one that gives a shape to the mechanicals around the passengers, starting
from the latter. This approach, which is known as “liquid” packaging, has
overturned traditional volumetric balances, improving weight distribution and
lowering the centre of gravity, which are important elements for driving
dynamics.
This was made possible by close collaboration with Nuvera, which developed the
Quadrivium Fuel Cells system, the various components of which were distributed
around the car, with four fuel cells positioned near to the wheels. The result
is that the space for passengers is much more generous (in proportion to the
total volume of the car) without detracting from the sporty line with a sleek,
tapered and aerodynamic (Cd = 0.27) profile. The modular nature of the fuel
cells, combined with the batteries and a sophisticated overall electronic
architecture (developed with PI Shurlok), allows for modular use of the
available power depending on driving conditions.
The Sintesi was imagined in a setting of transparent mobility which, thanks to
Clancast®, the radio technology developed by Reicom after years of research,
envisages that all cars act as nerve cells, creating a dynamic communications
network managed by a disseminated intelligence – a real “living connective
tissue” on which data and information about traffic and security, audio and
video, Internet and cross-media content can travel. The idea involves a concept
of wireless connectivity that establishes a continuous, transparent dialogue
between the town, the road and the vehicles that we will drive in the future,
without limiting the motorist’s autonomy, but increasing the sense of freedom.
This futuristic scenario, based on concrete, existing technology, opens the door
to advanced active safety solutions which in turn have made it possible to
design the car with volumes that are not conditioned by today’s bulky passive
safety systems.
The important role played by electronics in the Sintesi project is also evident
in the design of the interior and the lights. Inside, the facia symbolises the
flow of information in which the car moves. Created as a single semi-transparent
piece by Materialise, using the additive technology of personalised
manufacturing, its shape disseminates the information around the passenger
compartment with an intuitive use of colour and light. The lights become focal points through which the car dialogues with its
environment. In addition to the innovative LED system supplied by Osram, which
made it possible to create a simple, strong shape that underlines the car’s
central axis, the ‘headlights’ also incorporate the telecameras and the
proximity radar system.
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