The Royal College of Art is the UK’s only entirely postgraduate institution of art and design, dedicated to teaching, research and knowledge exchange with industry. The RCA has been ranked the number one university-level institution for art & design, internationally, for the eighth consecutive year according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject, 2021.
The Intelligent Mobility Design Centre (IMDC) leads research at the intersection of people, mobility and technology within a complex and changing urban and global environment. The IMDC is an interdisciplinary centre exploring, experimenting, prototyping and evaluating new mobility and automotive transitions via the synthesis of design and research methods. It integrates design and technology with insights into people and the social, environmental and economic context to enable a 360 view on the design of future mobility. The IMDC has a dedicated Studio space and visualisation lab to (co)develop, build and evaluate (full scale) vehicles and mobility services using a range of methods and tools including physical mock-ups, experiential prototypes, high fidelity visualisations and Extended Reality (XR) technologies.
The IMDC is looking for highly creative designers with a desire to work on autonomous vehicle projects, shaping the future of mobility. The overall objective of the project is to create and produce prototypes and demonstrators of new vehicles and interactions for evaluation as part of a broader research project. This could be in the form of animations, interior mock-ups, design models, Extended Reality experiences, and other media for testing and evaluation. This will require outputs of different fidelities for staged research and iterative design cycles. The project requires close collaboration between two complimentary roles: For the vehicle designer this is to explore new vehicle architecture, form, and detail and produce prototypes and demonstrators at various fidelities through to finished design solutions. For the interaction designer this is to explore the potential for new forms of interactions and experiences and use multimedia to create demonstrations and experiences for trialling and evaluation within the vehicle space. We anticipate that the project will produce a high-fidelity solution suitable for understanding real experiences of future autonomous mobility.
You will be educated to Masters degree level qualification in automotive / transport / vehicle design or equivalent experience. Have experience of design methods and techniques. Evidenced experience of coordinating and delivering design projects, either within an academic or commercial/industrial setting.
This role is based at Battersea, commencing as soon as possible, with an end date of 28th July 2024. The Vehicle Designer will be required to spend time in Hong Kong at least once a year for the employment period. The hours worked can be flexible from 0.6 – 1.0 FTE.
Please see the information pack for more details of this role.
Closing date is midnight on: 10th July 2022
The Royal College of Art is an equal opportunities employer. The College particularly welcomes applications from all sections of the community and would particularly encourage members of minority groups to apply.