A New Space Typology: Designing for the Self-Driving Car Industry

Image © Yng Yng Marshall/ Gensler

Silicon Valley has become an epicenter for perfecting technology that will transform society as we know it—from keeping people safe, to reclaiming our streets, to gaining back our time. In the race to put the first fully autonomous vehicles on the road, tech companies are partnering with automakers, acquiring startups and hiring talent to build these next-generation vehicles. This pivotal moment has created the need for a new type of space: self-driving car labs—hybrid workspace/lab/garage/showrooms—aimed at revolutionizing an industry within a decade. Working with several technology and manufacturing companies, Gensler is designing flexible car labs that will aid our clients in advancing this ground-breaking technology.

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City: 2050

What will your city look like in 2050?

Peering into the future is a favorite exercise for planners and designers. From the Chicago 1893 Columbian Exhibition to New York City’s two Worlds Fairs (1939 and 1965) and beyond, the future was optimistic and filled with cool technology and architecture. But not all views of the future were so hopeful. George Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (published in 1949) looked 35 years forward and painted a not-so-rosy vision of the future.

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Roadblocks to an EV Centric World

Image: Pexels.

Today, designers, developers and city planners who struggle to predict and prepare for an autonomous vehicle future – especially with an EV centric component – are overlooking the most obvious constricting factor: the accessibility of power itself. This fragile and archaic infrastructure’s life has been extended through building code modifications and public sector incentives to strike a more environmental way of living, but the result is simply treating the symptoms without curing the illness.

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Autonomous Vehicles Part II: What Lies Ahead

CC image courtesy DimiTVP

In my previous post, Autonomous Vehicles Part I: The Future is Here, I discussed the exciting autonomous technology that already surrounds us. However, there’s still a lot we can expect down the road.

Everyone talks about the hurdles that impede the adoption of driverless cars – regulatory approval, insurance liability, and technology that isn’t quite foolproof (yet). But deployment of personal self-driving vehicles also faces some other “speed bumps”:

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Autonomous Vehicles Part I: The Future Is Here

EZ10 self-driving shuttle in use, photo by Joe Pobiner © Gensler

There’s been a LOT of talk about autonomous vehicles recently. Every automaker is promising a self-driving car within the next few years, and every conference has several sessions dedicated to the consequences of this new technology. But did you know that autonomous technology is already here? (And has been for quite some time.)

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