RMIT Design Students Re-Design Smart Stacker (Au)

Press Release

Enhance interactive nature of the original stacker

As part of their Event Design classes at Melbourne’s RMIT’s School of Architecture and Design, students were given a great opportunity to respond to a real-world brief.

Their brief was to re-design the smart stacker, which has been gathering design kudos from both industry and academia as a unique (and cost-effective way) mobile platform for bringing the smart brand to potential buyers.

The brief asked for designs that enhanced the interactive nature of the original smart stacker.

Adding to the degree of difficulty, their lecturer was not about to let them off lightly on the project. Especially since it was Matthias Hank Haeusler, a German Architect completing his PhD in Design at RMIT university. While in Germany, Matthias was a key designer in the International Mercedes-Benz Motorshow stand, so he certainly had the credentials to judge what worked.

In 2005, he approached Mercedes-Benz Car Group to see if it was possible to give his students some realistic experience in Event Design.

The response came from the smart team, who had previously worked with the RMIT Design department in late 2004 for the ‘Wall 2 Wall’ Furniture Exhibition at the Docklands.

As Sam Tabart, Senior Manager for smart Australia puts it: “We were excited to be working with RMIT again for several reasons. Firstly, relationships with universities are important to smart in terms of our commitment to community integration. We also love working with young designers who really appreciate the unique design and function of the smart car. And opening the brief beyond the normal marketing channels has always given us fresh results.”

The results, which are the work of twenty students and qualifies as a major piece of their Event Design assessment, are now on exhibition at the Mercedes-Benz of Melbourne showroom located at 135 Kings Way, South Melbourne.

From the quality of the exhibition pieces, it’s easy to see that the students’ work stacks up well against industry standards.