Rethinking Tomorrow’s Connections: Mobility Design Beyond the Vehicle

Date

27 October 2025

Mobility is no longer just about movement, it’s about connection. At Italian Tech Week 2025, IED explored how design is redefining the way we live, feel, and shape the future of mobility, merging experiences, people, and technologies into an intelligent, human-centered ecosystem.

Mobility is undergoing a major transformation. Vehicles are no longer just objects to be designed; they are evolving into intelligent, connected environments where users expect comfort, personalisation, and seamless digital–physical interaction. Meanwhile, mobility providers face growing pressure from market shifts, demanding faster, more agile, and experience-centred innovation. In this context, mobility design has become a critical bridge—where user needs, technical possibilities, and contextual realities converge.

During Italian Tech Week 2025, IED explored this new frontier in the masterclass “Rethinking Tomorrow’s Connections: Mobility Design Beyond the Vehicle”, led by the coordinators of the Master's in Mobility Design at IED Torino, Lowie Vermeersch and Wouter Haspeslagh. The session highlighted that the future of mobility design lies not in shaping forms alone but in creating experiences, systems, and contexts that connect people and places in meaningful ways.

Rethinking tools and processes in mobility innovation

Current tools and workflows are not keeping up: physical model-making is tactile and intuitive but slow and disconnected; digital design is fast and flexible but lacks materiality and spatial nuance. This fragmentation not only slows down development—it also leads to missed opportunities in crafting meaningful, multimodal user experiences.

From objects to experiences: designing meaningful connections

Examples of mobility innovation are already visible, from autonomous urban furniture and micromobility hubs to shared vehicles and assistive technologies. Mixed-reality platforms now enable designers to prototype experiences rather than static forms, merging digital and physical realities into immersive, iterative workflows. Even everyday smart objects embody this principle: design should anticipate user intent and connect interaction, technology, and context.

Education and vision at IED Turin

From autonomous urban furniture to micromobility hubs, shared vehicles, and assistive technologies, there are already plenty of examples demonstrating how design can enrich social, urban, and ecological contexts. Mixed-reality platforms allow designers to prototype experiences rather than objects, blending digital and physical realities to create immersive, iterative workflows. Even everyday objects, like smart fridges, can illustrate this principle: design should anticipate user intent and integrate interaction, technology, and context.

This shift is not just technological; it is a change in mindset. Designers are moving from a purely object-centred approach to an experience-centred, context-aware, and cross-disciplinary practice. Students at IED are trained to think transdisciplinarily, expanding a single object into complex networks of material, digital, social, and environmental interactions.

Designing mobility as a human experience

As the masterclass concluded, the message was clear: mobility design is no longer about movement alone. It is about connection, experience, and integration. As Rick Rubin said, “Imagination has no limits. The physical world does. But true value exists in connecting imagination and reality.” By bridging imagination with real-world contexts, designers can make mobility not only functional but human, meaningful, and transformative.

👇🏻 Watch the full masterclass here - Courtesy of Italian Tech Week