From a design perspective, the barriers between home and work have been blurring for some time. As mobile devices have "liberated" us to work anywhere, and increasingly at home, designers have compensated by making work interiors more domestic. Sofas, daybeds, comfy breakout zones … if it's soft and comfy these days you're possibly at the office.
Now our cars are coming over all homely too. The collaboration between Land Rover and prestige Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat on the new Range Rover Velar SUV is the spearhead of what's widely tipped to be a new automotive trend.
"Land Rover approached us to do a textile for the Velar," explains Charlotte Bastholm Skjold, head of design at Kvadrat. "It had to be a textile that would fit in with the high-tech interior, but that should also bring some elements of the living room, that same warmth and comfort, into the car."
Kvadrat developed a range of super soft, highly durable wool blends as an alternative to the almost ubiquitous leather kit-out of top-of-the-line vehicles.
Founded in 1968, Kvadrat's luxurious wool blends upholstered many mid-century furniture classics, moulding perfectly to fit the new curvy forms being devised by designers such as Denmark's Arne Jacobsen. Today, the company regularly works with influential artists such as Olafur Eliasson and fashion designers of Raf Simons' ilk. This is the first time it has aligned with a car brand.
"We believe this as a trend we will see coming more and more," Bastholm Skjold says.
Reductive, sleek, stealthily chic, the Velar interior was prodded and sat upon and oohed over by the design world's great and good when it was unveiled at the Milan Furniture Fair last April. The general consensus was that, as a design object, the Velar gets top marks for successfully articulating a new sense of luxury for the rev-head.
"Within Land Rover, the way the design and engineering teams work collaboratively is unique in the automobile business," says Richard Woolley, the company's design studio director. "Generally speaking, within the automotive world design is seen as the cherry on the cake. The prettying up of something to make it appealing at market. For us, design is represented at the highest level. It is understood as the gateway to creating integrated desirability."
To top it off, the Velar incorporates a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling up to eight devices to be connected to the internet anywhere and at any one time. So, if you're over the office and are tired of home you can always work in the car.
NEED TO KNOW
The Velar's dapple grey wool-blend seat material by Kvadrat is offered as an alternative to leather upholstery. Contrasting suedecloth inserts are crafted from recycled plastic bottles, available in light oyster or ebony.
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