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Marchi Architectes designs a portable home inspired by a concept car

2020-08-07T13:50:00-04:00

In response to a competition held be Renault back in 2016 for new automotive-inspired architecture and design, French-based design studio Marchi Architectes submitted the first place entry. Called the Renault Symbioz House 33, the architects designed a portable home inspired by Renault's concept car, the Symbioz. The home fully integrates the Symbioz, treating it as a natural extension of the spatial aspects of the interior space.

The 21-meter-long rectangular structure rises a subtle 7 meters in height. Utilizing three primary materials: steel, glass, and wood, the home maintains a minimalist quality that accentuates texture and transparency.

The lower main level holds all of the living spaces including the living and kitchen areas. The upper-level holds the bedroom and bathroom. However, the dwelling's defining feature is its mobile room, which is Renault's Symbioz concept car. The vehicle can park on a movable platform that enables it to move through the architecture's two levels...

Renault's Symbioz is a self-driving car that becomes one with your house

2017-09-18T15:45:00-04:00

Renault recently revealed their new concept for an autonomous vehicle that fully integrates into one's home. Called the Symbioz, the idea seems obvious enough—many models for self-driving vehicles have interiors that convert into arrangements typical of the living room and this one comes dressed in wood, marble, felt and porcelain afforded by its large car proportions.

Photo courtesy of Facebook page @Renault.

Beyond the interior, the car and home share energy that is distributed through a smart grid. This system allows the home to use power stored in the batteries of the car temporarily for lights, screens, and home appliances during periods of peak use or in the event of a blackout. In reverse, drivers can program their car to use the home’s energy for recharging when needed. Additionally, the car can plan ahead and adapt to usage by syncing to the owner's calendar and drawing charge from the grid accordingly.

Drivers can switch between manual and autonomous modes of driving and w...

Renault issues Coupé Corbusier: a concept car to explore "a new way forward", inspired by Le Corbusier

2015-10-26T13:12:00-04:00

Le Corbusier, who died 50 years ago, is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern architecture. Renault tells us this long, chamfered concept was “inspired by the architect’s modernist principles and theories”, and references the “golden era of the automobile of the 1930s”. Top Gear is no historical expert, but does not remember seeing anything like the Corbusier concept in photos from the Thirties.

Would Le Corbusier have chosen "suicide doors"? Renault whipped up the design for part of an exhibition put on by Centre des Monuments Nationaux in France, “Cars for living: the automobile and modernism in the 20th and 21st centuries,” which focuses on the history and legacy of the heyday of French automotive manufacturing in the 1930s. No word yet as to how it actually drives.

The Coupé doesn't seem to take much from Le Corbusier's Minimum Car, which exists only as sketches, and was born out the architect's obsession with the manufacturable precision of the automobile industry.

h/t Highsnobiety

More on the ongoing influence of Le Corbusier: