Lexus has commissioned designers from diverse fields to imagine interior designs for its next planned battery electric concept car, the LF-Z Electrified, including footwear designer Salehe Bembury, digital artist Ondrej Zunka and Japanese fashion label Hender Scheme.

Bembury

As vice president of men’s footwear at Versace, Bembury uses natural materials such as cedar, cork and granite, with colours inspired by sandstone landscapes and other natural tones. These materials sit alongside textiles and patterns that reference Bembury’s background in trainer design, such as a “hairy” suede used on the seatbacks and a signature fingerprint motif that is often found in his work applied to a personalised control panel.

“I want this car to feel like a seamless juxtaposition of machine and nature, making equal use of the machine function and the benefits of nature,” says Bembury.

Zunka

Forgoing traditional notions of car design, London-based 3D artist Ondrej Zunka’s concept car interior features space-age mechanisms, sci-fi materials and multidimensional hues that transcend time and space.

“This interior design is purely speculative, so I allowed for free associations and pure imagination and creativity,” says Zunka. “I wanted to make the interior feel as if it wasn’t made by humans, but maybe designed by a sophisticated artificial intelligence.”

The futuristic tech interior features intelligent lighting along the car’s panels with translucent silicone seat cushions with memory foam-like properties and a panoramic ceiling crafted from brushed chrome.

Hender

With a focus on the natural material characteristics of leather, Tokyo-based fashion label Hender Scheme was a natural choice to reflect the Japanese heritage and takumi craftsmanship of Lexus vehicles.  For its LF-Z Electrified virtual interior, Hender Scheme imagines an entirely leather interior juxtaposed with technology.  The untreated, organic material will develop a patina over time, deepening in colour and becoming unique to each vehicle.

The design mirrors the 60,000 hours of experience required of Lexus takumi craftsmen in Asakusa, Tokyo. The leather used for the project requires trained eyes to identify its natural material characteristics such as thickness and elasticity. Moulding methods are then introduced to shape the leather to the sculptural lines of the roof, doors and instrument panel.

“The LF-Z Electrified embodies the future of the Lexus brand, so it is exciting to see that future represented by such diverse talent across the design space,” says Brian Bolain, general manager at Lexus International. “Each of the collaborators brings a fresh energy that reinterprets the interior of the LF-Z and examines the themes of Lexus’s next chapter.”

www.lexus.com