Regenerative Design: Audi featured at Design Shanghai alongside Stella McCartney
Published on: 24/03/2022Audi returned to Design Shanghai as the headline partner, intent on demonstrating its focus on forward-looking, sustainable solutions. And we found the perfect partner: British fashion designer and innovator, Stella McCartney.
In reality, the worlds of fashion and automotive design aren’t really all that far apart. The Audi installation showed how recycled materials were cleverly used in the design of the Audi e-tron GT quattro, and paralleled that with a range of Stella McCartney’s innovative products.
"The theme of this year's design fair – Regenerative design comes to China... and the world – was an excellent fit for Audi,” explained head of Audi Head of Brand Henrik Wenders. "Audi is known for its outstanding design and is passionately committed to sustainability. With the Audi e-tron GT quattro we presented this combination at its very best.
“We were delighted to be at Design Shanghai in cooperation with Stella McCartney, demonstrating through our walk-in installation how both the fashion and the automotive business can think and live in a sustainable way."
McCartney is the industry leader when it comes to her use of innovative materials with low impact to the environment. Consider the Stella McCartney Falabella Go bag made from Econyl, a material consisting of 100 percent recycled nylon fibres. The fibres come from production waste, remains of fabrics and carpets or from old fishing nets. Audi also uses this material in the Audi e-tron GT quattro (the carpet and floor mats are made from it).
In fact, sustainable materials are used throughout the interior of the Audi Gran Turismo. In the optional leather-free design package, for example, the covers of the sports seats are a combination of artificial leather with the textile Kaskade or a blend of artificial leather with Dinamica, a micro-fibre. In both cases, these covers are mostly made up of materials such as polyester fibres created from recycled PET bottles, textiles or scraps of fibres.
On the opening day of Design Shanghai, Audi kicked things off with a session in the Design Forum. Wu Yunzhou, coordinator for Interior Design and Zhao Yu (Scott), head of Innovation Research at Audi China, discussed sustainability as a global trend and the growing awareness of this topic in China. They showed how sustainability is implemented in automobile design by the Four Rings brand: in both the shape of the vehicle and in the materials used, but also in the design process itself.
The goal of the event was to demonstrate Audi’s transformation into a provider of sustainable premium mobility. With the Audi e-tron GT models and different versions of the Audi Q4 e-tron, the number of electric models will be doubled from three to seven in 2021. By 2025, the company plans to have more than 20 fully electric models internationally, and to further expand its PHEV portfolio.
To get all the info about the e-tron models and electric mobility, be sure to visit our e-tron Sustainability page!
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