Royal College of Art – Intelligent Mobility degree show highlights

Royal College of Art’s annual Intelligent Mobility MA showcase offered up a holistic take on mobility design that focused on three main topic areas: urban transport, automotive transitions and how technology fits into design.

The college adopts a ‘design-first’ approach, which yes – might seem like an obvious direction – but this course expands the scope of design to answer commercial and social questions from beyond just automotive design. This approach aims to prove that when you take inspiration from different elements of design, something gloriously different is created.

Car Design News attended the 2025 Intelligent Mobility show and below you’ll find a selection of what was on show.

Caddorde Zafari

With a background in product design, Zafari believes that mobility should be brought down to a human scale by focusing on human-centred products that fit within street environments.

To that end, Zafari’s main project stemmed from the idea of a moving street that weaves through people, instead of people having to navigate around vehicles. The goal was to reimagine public transport within the future context of London being pedestrianised. “While pedestrianisation benefits the public it can lead to increased traffic displacement and overall longer journey times,” Zafari explained.

Zafari has coined the phrase ‘soft mobility’ which translates quite literally in his project, with the inflatable exterior that is soft to the touch. Inside, the main grab bar will be warm to the touch, heightening the idea that this mode of transport will “give it a creature-like kind of character, drawing away from the hard and functional designs that we have today,” he said.

As for functionality, Zafari explained: “There’s no stations or stops, you can think of it like a revolving elevator so people can hop on and off as they please.”

Edward Johnson

To say this project had an extensive amount of in-depth research behind it would be an underestimate. Johnson got his lightbulb moment when he read a paper on car harm which dictates that despite harm caused by automobility, people continue to facilitate it by expanding vehicle size, roads, parking and resources. As a result (and after a flying 36-hour visit to Berlin), Johnson followed the thread of a second-use vehicle that acts as a secondary space beyond driving, aiming to actively improves the look of the environment in Berlin.

“As a designer, should I be trying to persuade people to buy something that I know is going to make the environment worse? And could I provide access to the automobility space that currently they don’t have?” He expanded.

With the project Johnson makes the barrier between automobility space and pedestrian space more permeable.

David Wareham

Wareham’s project focused on future luxury, with an emphasis of digital detox and connecting with nature. The concept integrated the Snow Peak brand (a premium apparel company known for outdoor supplies) and features a hard-shell exterior and soft canvas interior which includes punch points reminiscent of a hammock.

The seat’s final form was developed by 3D printing a human figure and using a sushi mat to capture contours, then translating this into a 3D model.

Moritz Bunar

The aim was clear with Bunar’s work – to challenge conventional automotive design and societal perceptions in one fell swoop.

The first brief, developed in collaboration with Hyundai Motor group for the Hyundai Kia Sustainable Design competition, was to design a small sustainable car for 2050, set in a city of the student’s choice. For Bunar, the city was an easy decision: “I was immediately inspired by Berlin because the city embraces grunginess, nightlife and the dirtiness of the place – that’s part of the appeal,” he explained.

Within this theme, Bunar chose the topic of wear and tear of shared vehicles. “You can already see how people treat rental cars compared to their personally owned ones. I wanted to lean into this and challenge the idea of cars having to be these flawless objects as it’s impossible to keep this pristine condition. So, my project flips this idea and creates something that actually looks better when used.”

Personalisation is a key part of Bunar’s project, with users actively encouraged to customise their vehicle via graffiti and other mediums: “It should be a reflection of the city.”

“This was an incredibly fun project to work on but challenging to make it look cool – as opposed to ugly,” Bunar reflected.

Ran Ju

The brief for this project was to create a small and sustainable vehicle for 2050, and Ju chose outer London as an area to focus on – specifically Stratford.

After conducting market research on the area, which included noting the boxy architecture and an increasing trend of remote working, he decided to create a vehicle that helps user escape ubran area to green spaces for remote work. Therefore inside this vehicle there is an integrated microphone, speaker and screens for meetings as well as four sensors to catch gestures and control devices.