★恩→波客★

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http://enbo.blogbus.com/logs/24932085.html

最近事情很多，都没时间管博客了，昨天做实验从早上8点做到下午5点，今天又上了一整天的课，辛苦啊，现在全国估计就厦大还在上课吧……

Mazda Nagare design language一直没把它结束了，其实主要部分都在前四篇了，有关流设计的发展历程、构成要素、它的一些变化与前景等等。后面的一些内容大家估计也都看过或了解的，这几篇都是翻译自carbodydesign的文章。

Mazda’s design process

“The most interesting thing about Mazda design, in terms of the technology used to help create it, is that 20 years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible,” explains Peter Birtwhistle, chief of design, Mazda Europe. “The complexity and the subtlety of the surfaces would mean, even in the hands of the most skilled clay modelers, that it is virtually impossible to do by hand.”

Traditionally, during the car design process, a car designer would sketch a car and then make a small exterior clay model before moving to larger clay models at the green light stage. Highly skilled modelers then work on the full-size clay to generate a life-size, near-realistic ‘vehicle’.

This process has been used for generations of cars, but in recent years the integration of digital design processes has seen car development change.

Though the exact methods used vary between automakers, cars are increasingly created within the computer (or transferred there from the initial 2D sketches) using digital design software. Ultimately this software allows 3D mathematical form data to be created from a 2D drawing.

This information is combined with technical information, such as the existing components including the chassis and drive system, – known as the ‘hard points’ – to create a 3D ‘realistic model’ before a time-consuming clay model ever needs to be cut.

At this stage, this data can be exported to a multi-axis milling machine, which can produce a life size clay facsimile of the vehicle containing the exact complexities of the original design. Ultimately this data can be used to create actual car components and production tooling moulds for the manufacturing process.

Today complex surfaces could only have been executed digitally. This is because it is easier to design and produce clean, clear surfaces than the complex textured surface language.

This combined with a technological understanding that is rare amongst car designers and the integration of advanced computer aided design and engineering processes within Mazda, means that Mazda has the technical ability to bring design ideas to market.

“If you break it down to its simplest forms it is not that much more complicated to do that current construction” says Franz von Holzhausen, “but the manufacturability of the textures will be crucial because these textures are a signature design language for Mazda.”

“Every concept car that we have done has been a learning process,” explains Laurens van den Acker. “We have worked with some of the most adventurous engineers in the world.

"There is a long history of this kind of innovation at Mazda. It’s a designers dream to have engineers that want, so much, to do this. We do have to work very closely with our engineers and our suppliers. Everyone has to be on board.”

The story and importance of Flow: the Nagare generation

After lots of brain storming, sketching, research and feasibility studies the Nagare design language was born, in the form of the Nagare concept car: but where did it come from and how did it evolve?

The design team began by looking at the dynamic qualities existent in Mazda vehicles. Of these nothing summed up Mazda better than ‘emotion in motion’; Mazda’s commitment to engineering vehicles that offered a purity of childlike enjoyment through the sheer joy of motoring.

Hours of discussion confirmed amongst the design team that Mazda deserved the same emotion in its cars when they were static as it had earnt when they were moving.

“We turned to nature for inspiration, focusing on images of motion created by forces like wind and water,” explains Laurens van den Acker. “Such natural flow lines all lend an intuitive sense of motion.”

 “We wanted to create cars that had a ‘snapshot feeling’ of this natural motion,” explains Laurens van den Acker. “We realised that the automotive industry is one of the few industries that hadn’t yet captured these amazing natural textures from the landscape. Architecture, fashion and product design have all looked at these landscape elements. There was a great opportunity for us to interpret this for Mazda design.”

“Our new surface language is car-centric,” adds Franz von Holzhausen. “After studying the architectural approach, which tends to be strictly rigid, and the organic approach, which is highly fluid, we created Nagare to straddle those two disciplines. It is fluid, graceful, and dynamic. But the message it registers on the beholder is flow-motion.”

From here Mazda’s designers began to explore the possibility of textured surfacing on cars: as if the cars’ surfaces had been naturally sculptured by air or water. Mazda’s design team began by developing a surface language to visually describe their Flow philosophy. Like the natural elements that had inspired them the team wanted to communicate the sheer raw power of Mazda motion even when their cars were still, as van den Acker explains:

“It was in making the transition from observing motion in nature as an expression of energy to applying it to a manmade object such as a car that we discovered what a thoroughly exciting and logical creative approach the design concept represented. This revelation allowed us to proceed to create one dramatic and unique design after another.”

Conventional automotive design dictates that the panels of car bodies are comprised of smooth, clean and clear surfaces. Yet Flow is like a ripple or a wave effect across the surface of the metal.

“The surface language of Nagare goes against conventional design thinking of clean, uncomplicated surfaces,” explains Franz von Holzhausen. “This is what we are all taught at college so it goes against the grain.

“We are breaking the golden rule of design – which is to simplify,” explains Laurens van den Acker. “Everybody will tell you to remove lines until you have no more left to remove. We are adding lines, which is kind of counter intuitive, but if we do it well it looks natural and creates beauty.”