Impact

AN EXQUISITE DRIVERLESS CAR & A FLORAL TEMPLE TO PONDER

Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car. Photo by Sylvain Deleu.

by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.

DOMINIC WILCOX - THE STAINED GLASS DRIVERLESS SLEEPER CAR

A driverless car is radical enough -- but this one is radically beautiful.

London designer Dominic Wilcox debuted The Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car at the 2014 London Design Festival for the Dezeen and Mini Frontiers exhibition. He fully expects driverless cars to become not only the norm, but a much safer alternative to human drivers -- so safe, in fact, that this car has no standard safety features.

"In the future it will be safer to drive in a driverless car than it will in a manual car," Wilcox says. "Therefore we don't need the protection systems that are built into contemporary cars. We can just have a shell of any design."

The exterior shell of the car is made of handcrafted stained glass, which overlays a modernistic wooden arched frame, adding to a sense of the past and future that helped inspire the work.

The car operates with remote controls. Wilcox imagines that someday, his creations will be operated via a distant computer, like Google cars.

But wait, there’s more! There’s another quirk: you can sleep, work, and just hang out in it! This shimmering beauty can function as a mobile living unit.

Wilcox has simultaneously launched a concept website named taxirobot.co.uk, which allows visitors to select from a variety of driverless vehicles that can double as a bedroom, an office, gym, dining room or a sun bed that could be programmed to avoid cloudy routes.

Learn more about The Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car here.

BETHAN LAURA WOOD - RAINBOW VASES

Designer Bethan Laura Wood created some exceptional, highly soulful floral temple arrangements in her installations at the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, the hub location for this year’s Shoreditch Design Triangle, for the 2014 Design Festival.

Inspired by traditional British well dressings, altarpieces and harvest festivals, Wood created two altars filled with an eclectic mix of unusual vases, some designed by her friends Max Lamb and Martino Gamper and Silo Studio. Wood’s work was also featured at the Future Heritage of Decorex exhibit at this year’s London Design Festival.

The flowers were supplied by the hotel’s That Flower Shop.

Wood has created extraordinary displays for Hermès London boutique, the Aram Gallery, Nilfur Gallery. Her work, which ranges from furniture and glass to textiles and jewelry, is focused on color and pattern, often using her own form of marquetry.

While the technique traditionally uses wood veneers to make decorative patterns, Wood has developed a method using Abet laminates, which look like rock.

Wood studied at the Royal College of Art in London.

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PHOTO CREDITS:

Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox: Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox: Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: by Sylvain Deleu. Dominic Wilcox’s Stained Glass Driverless Sleeper Car.
Photo: Courtesy of Bethan Laura Wood. Tulip Stack. Designer: Bethan Laura Wood.
Photo: Courtesy of Bethan Laura Wood. Rainbow Flowers. Designer: Bethan Laura Wood.
Photo: Courtesy of Bethan Laura Wood. Rainbow T Vase. Designer: Bethan Laura Wood.
Photo: Courtesy of Bethan Laura Wood. Rainbow Vases at Ace Hotel. Designer: Bethan Laura Wood.
Photo: Courtesy of Hot Book. Bethan Laura Wood: The designer of the future.