Designing for flexible vehicle interiors through discrete architectural methods

Reframing the Role of the Designer in an Automated and Computational Age

Dooley, Robert (2025) Designing for flexible vehicle interiors through discrete architectural methods. Doctoral thesis, Falmouth University / University of the Arts London.

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Abstract / Summary

This Practice as Research (PaR) PhD investigates how
automated design and construction methods developed
within architectural academia can be adapted to the
context of automotive interiors to address flexibility
and utilisation challenges associated with Connected,
Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) mobility. The
aim of the project was to formulate a novel prototype
design practice capable of enabling more adaptable,
reconfigurable vehicle interiors - interiors better suited to
the dynamic demands of shared and service-based mobility
models.
The research engages deeply with the critical limitations
of current automotive design practice, arguing that its
entanglement with legacy production models undermines
its ability to address pressing sustainability, flexibility, and
utilisation challenges associated with CASE. The research
introduces ‘Discrete Automobility’, a design methodology
that translates discrete construction logics - typically
used to enable mass customisation, localised production,
and component reusability in architecture - into the
automotive domain. Through physical prototyping and
computational workflows, it demonstrates how these
logics can support new forms of vehicle interior design
that respond to evolving user needs, while reducing
material waste and increasing utilisation rates.
This research questions the role of the designer as we
enter a new epoch defined by automation and mass
computation. Drawing on Mario Carpo’s Second Digital
Turn, the thesis argues that creativity in the computational
age shifts from the direct manipulation of form to the
indirect authorship of systems, rules, and workflows.
The ‘Education Brick’ prototype serves as a working
demonstration of how vehicle interiors can be designed
using modular, rule-based construction, allowing layouts
to be reconfigured according to context, user group,
or time of day. The proposed methodology leverages
automated design-to-construction workflows and
robotically fabricated modular components to produce
interiors that are not fixed, but reconfigurable in response
to varied user needs. In this model, the designer becomes a
systems architect - crafting rule sets, spatial grammars, and
manufacturing frameworks rather than singular forms. The
‘Education Brick’ prototype and ‘Discrete Automobility’
concept has been presented to OEM design teams and
their responses, along with critical reflection on the
research process, form part of the evaluation and point to
future pathways for development.
By situating itself within both design theory and technical
practice, this research contributes a new methodology
for flexible vehicle interiors and a critical perspective
on the future of design authorship. The thesis makes an
epistemological contribution by articulating a mode of
automotive design that is indirect, and concludes that
far from being undermined by automation, designers
are uniquely placed to shape the systems and platforms
through which design operates; becoming relevant by
embracing a more indirect, systemic, and adaptive mode
of practice. This thesis argues that indirectness is not a
diminishment of creativity, but a reconceptualisation of
it, aligned with broader cultural shifts in computation,
automation, and shared authorship. By building, testing,
and communicating ‘Discrete Automobility’ the research
embodies its knowledge claim and invites a critical
rethinking of design practice in the automotive field and
beyond.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	Architecture Creative Art & Design > Interior Design Research
Department:	School of Architecture, Design & Interiors
Depositing User:	Nicola Bond
Date Deposited:	29 Oct 2025 12:52
Last Modified:	29 Oct 2025 12:52
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6221

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