This course investigates the emerging intersection of transportation design and experience design disciplines through the exercise of collaborative teams designing mobile environments in autonomous vehicles.

The course will be sponsored by DURA, a key technology contributor to making the next generation of transportation interiors a reality. Students will learn the fundamentals of the combined design practices, explore the 5 stages of autonomous vehicles, investigate the range of functions an autonomous vehicle can support, and deliver a finely crafted story of how the considerate design of a vehicle interior supports the function of emerging autonomous vehicles.

Students are assigned formally structured design projects, each requiring a substantive research phase, a prototype or concept testing phase, followed by concept refinement and concept presentation phases. Where appropriate, the research phase requires students to collaborate in teams, and in some instances entire projects are team-based.