Transportation Design Education
Transportation Design Education - A New Direction
Martin Smith
Chair Professor of Industrial Design
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Abstract
Since the 1950s transportation design education has been almost exclusively about automobiles. Trains, taxis, planes and others have been an elective opportunity but largely a footnote in student portfolios with projects focused on getting a job with the car companies. The “love of cars” and the rather superficial approach (styling at the expense of functionality) that results needs to be replaced by a greater understanding of the context of transportation and with a fresh, rational, objective approach. It is proposed that a new approach to educate transportation design students be created that would emphasize the larger context of transportation, focusing on the complex system of mobility solutions within human settlements. Furthermore it will examine how modern industrial design processes such as design thinking, problem solving and prototyping will allow the designer to participate and contribute to the planning and creation of cities and it’s transportation systems, historically an urban planning process that has had very little participation from the industrial designer.
 Jason Mills |
 Sylvia Bargellini |
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 Chloe Marie Mapes |
 Ed Dorsa |
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