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| Yoshinori Asahi, left, and Toshinobu Minami, who lead Honda's interior
and exterior design, aim for cutting-edge designs that are practical to
produce. |
WAKO, Japan -- Japan's killer earthquake-tsunami double punch slammed
the country in 2011, knocking out Honda's operations -- and those of
its domestic rivals -- for months.
But the disaster carried a silver lining for Honda that has radically transformed its design department -- for the better.
Refugee
engineers from Honda's tremor-trashed r&d center in the quake zone
initially had no place to work. So they bivouacked to Honda's design and
styling studio just outside of Tokyo.
And what happened next stunned insiders, recalls Yoshinori Asahi, global head of interior design for Honda and Acura.
Working
elbow to elbow, engineers no longer shot down stylists' ambitious
designs with a dismissive e-mail. And designers more willingly dialed
back fantastical drawings after receiving a face-to-face dose of reality
from more grounded engineers.
Both sides riffed off each other
so well that Honda permanently transferred dozens of engineers to the
global design center last spring. Their arrival is crucial as Honda
rolls out a new design language to revitalize the brand.
"Before, engineers saw the designs and said 'So,
this is what you want, eh?'" Asahi said. "Now they say, 'We can't say no.'"
Honda
says the overhaul is not only speeding design work but delivering more
practical designs that are more cutting-edge, because both sides are
more vested in creating something good.
The stakes are high
because Honda is introducing the new design language with the
third-generation Fit small car that went on sale in September in Japan.
Dubbed Exciting H Design, it's aimed at returning Honda to its sporty
roots.
"We have lost a bit of our sportiness while retaining good
functionality," said Toshinobu Minami, global director for exterior
design at the carmaker's two brands. "First, we want sportiness. The
thing I want most is to recover our uniqueness."
The design
overhaul of Honda's product range targets both exterior styling -- long
criticized for ho-hum looks -- and the interior, which was panned as
cheap and plasticky in the debut of the latest Civic sedan.
Keywords of the philosophy: High Touch, High Tech and High Tension.
Minami
and Asahi adopted the English terms -- used even in Japan -- for a
common language that could be easily grasped in Honda's far-flung design
studios in America, Europe and Asia.
High Touch refers to quality surface treatments and the use of top-grade materials, an obvious rebut to the Civic critics.
High Tension denotes a more muscular stance and a more engaging cockpit.
High
Tech is realized through the extensive use of touchpad controls on the
center stack. Meanwhile, Minami's new formula for a front look, dubbed
Solid Wing Face, blends the grille into the headlamps, creating a more
futuristic look.
"Face is important," Minami said. "But this is a
new phase. This time, Honda's new face integrates the grille and
headlights into one. It's a new era."
What Honda's design duo doesn't want is a new look just to be new. New can quickly become old.
"We
used to debate the meaning of new, what is the value of new. But it's
not about old and new," Asahi says. "It has to be stimulating and
emotional."
A better, more exciting stance is critical, Minami says.
Consider the third-generation Fit.
It
has a much more athletic, chiseled look than the outgoing Fit, which is
bubble-shaped. And while both are the same width and height, the new
model has a more low-slung stance.
Minami says he achieved this
by twisting the car along the sharply creased character line to push the
rear wheels out and pinch the rear cabin inward. The line's sudden
downward bend toward the front wheels lends the feeling of a lower front
end.
From the front, Minami tries to accentuate a broader tread
by spacing fog light cowls low and wide near the corners. Though
presented as air intake vents, they are actually dummies that are sealed
shut. That is to improve aerodynamics. In fact, the lower mesh grille
below the H badge is also part dummy, with about half the mesh openings
actually closed.
Improving aerodynamics is another big focus.
Minami said the latest Fit achieves a big improvement in drag reduction
over the outgoing model, though Honda declines to give specific figures.
Tweaks throughout help cheat the wind:
• Taillamps wrap
around the edge of the hatchback. They get a razor-cleaved rim to make a
clean break with the wind, but because they are transparent plastic,
they mitigate a boxy look.
• An all-new platform was designed to keep the car's undercarriage flat by raising bumps and bulges such as the oil pan.
• The
A-pillars get special ridges to maximize air flow. The ridges are then
integrated into the overall design through creases that stretch down
each side of the hood.
Watch for those tricks, as well as the rest of the Exciting H package, to be deployed across the Honda line.
Next up: A Fit-based small crossover that will debut at November's Tokyo Motor Show and go on sale in Japan this year.
A
concept version, the Urban SUV Concept, was shown at the Detroit auto
show last January. That car, which gets many of the Fit's styling cues,
is very close to the production version, Minami said.
A Fit-based subcompact sedan will follow the crossover.
Involving engineers early in the design process is key.
Before,
the creative types at the design studio would start a design by dashing
off dozens of sketches drawn from the farthest frontiers of their
imaginations, Asahi says.
Yet, less attention was paid to whether
such designs were realistic. What raw materials are needed? How will it
be manufactured? Does a flashy dash panel actually accommodate the air
conditioning offered by suppliers? Does the center console sufficiently
house the audio display?
"As you do the feasibility studies, the
design starts looking worse," Asahi said. If you don't start with the
big picture, one small miscalculation can throw off the whole package.
Now
designers start from materials and functions, and they draw ideas to
fit those realities. "It's a big mind change," Asahi said.
Stationing engineers inside the design center to consult earlier in the development cycle helps streamline the process.
While
it injects a dose or reality for the designers, it also pressures the
engineers to try harder to realize more avant-garde ideas. "A good mix
is necessary," Asahi said.
Indeed, last October, the design studio opened the 01 Lounge as a kind of creative retreat for engineers and designers.
There,
they chill out on couches, sip cappuccinos or pluck a guitar as they
banter back and forth to fire their neurons and find inspiration for
that leap from nothingness to an initial idea, the first step in Honda's
10-stage march to a fixed design.
"Once the factory people start
working closely with designers, they become more motivated to actually
help bring those designs to life," Asahi said. "It's a very powerful
support for us."
Source;
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130923/OEM03/309239989/how-japanese-quake-rebooted-hondas-design#axzz2fiwXA84X
