Volkswagen Air Cleaner : Ostrovskii Daniil

Nowadays, electric cars are considered the pinnacle of environmental friendliness and progress, but cars are still a symbol of global pollution and the bad environmental situation in the world. Therefore, a car that does not emit harmful particles into the air is not enough. The situation can be turned upside down by a vehicle that will not just not pollute the air, but will clean it! This is where the Volkswagen Air Cleaner Concept comes in.

A device that fulfills its original purpose – to transport people, but also to make the environment around it cleaner, eliminating the harm caused to the city by gasoline cars, factories, etc. So we just not just reduce, but attack the problem. This can not only make our world a better and more comfortable place to live, but also change people’s opinion about cars in general.

In order to convey the feeling of a device, to show people through the design language that this is not just a car, but also a kind of vacuum air cleaner, Daniil tried to make the design more ”product-like”. To achieve this, the Volkswagen Air Cleaner Concept has a strong separation of volume by the texture and the color: The front part, where the air filters are placed, is made with a dark and matte material, which gives the feel of an instrument or a tool. This part can be detached from the car, given for cleaning and replaced with a new one, cleaned by a certain service. And the rest of the volume of the car, in which the passengers sit, classic car paint material is used, since, after all, the initial task of the car is to transport people.

In order to make it easier to understand the function of this Volkswagen Air Cleaner Concept, there are large air intakes at the front of the car, which also help to take in more air, and in turn increases the efficiency of the cleaning mechanism of the car.

The car is also designed to fit into the landscape of the city and look modern, so the second, glossy part was made like a sculpture, a futuristic shape that also connects with VW new design language, and gives out friendly looking and simplistic character.

In the initial stage, in addition to sketches, Daniil used polygon modeling to find proportions and feeling. Then he continued searching for the volume in the clay which he didn’t know so well but great clay modelers Capi and Poncho guided him a lot in every step. After that he went ahead with the model in Autodesk Alias. In the end Blender was used to build personalized environment and for rendering.

Daniil believes that in the future this concept can be implemented to some extent and benefit people in cities. This project was done during Daniil’s internship at Volkswagen Studio, Wolfsburg under the mentorship of Sachar Skipor and Thiago Carfi.

About Designer

Ostrovskii Daniil is an automotive designer from the small town of Sarov, Russia. He is 23 years old, studying at the Moscow Polytechnic University currently in second year of master’s degree. He believes in creating cars that will touch peoples hearts and organically fill cities, becoming a continuation of the landscape. He had a great opportunity to get an internship at Volkswagen at the design studio in Wolfsburg and gain great experience of car design process there. He is currently working on graduation project. You can follow more of his work on Behance.