BMW Head of Exterior Design Anders Warming Interviewed

From BMWBlog .com – To find out more interesting BMW news and stories, visit their site here.

Anders Warming is the Director of Exterior Design at BMW. His talent and passion in design makes him one of the best designers in the automotive world. He graduated from the prestigious Art Center College of Design school and started with BMW at its DesignworksUSA design studio. Warming was the designer of the first generation E85 Z4 Roadster, GINA Light Concept, Mille Miglia 2006 Coupe Concept and was involved in the X1 Concept design. Here is an excerpt with his interview with BMW Blog:

BMWBLOG: GINA and the Mille Miglia coupe were built using the old method of stretching a skin over a light tubular frame. The greatest proponent of that form of construction, if we call correctly, is Touring and their Superleggeras. What did you love about that construction technique and what was most challenging?

Anders Warming: There are two different concepts. GINA was based on a principle of using skin of a car in a different way and learning from the process of thinking how to do forms in different ways.

And we learned a lot from it. It was mainly a car we did for ourselves and we did it internally. We actually weren’t even planning to ever show the car. We had the car for many years just internally, looking at it and learning from it. Mille Miglia was a different concept. It was a homage to the great endeavors of racing in Italy.

Honestly, I’m not saying it was easy, but since it was straight from the heart like a dream car, it became pretty easy. We were fast and very excited about it. GINA took a lot more thinking. Don’t forget, also, on the interior of Mille Miglia we were using different materials like bent sheet metal that was perforated metal that made three dimensional forms and in that sense there was a little bit of GINA, actually a lot of GINA in the Mille Miglia.

BMWBLOG: What external factors are currently shaping automotive design? Eg. Crash safety standards, environmental factors, social trends, etc.

Anders Warming: Completely right. The one driving force I think as far as car design is going is sustainability. Sustainability in our view is the new premium.

“Premium” is an interesting word. What does “premium” mean? It means that it has something special that is kind of hard to quantify. A special aura about it. A premium product, whether it’s a handbag, whether it’s a musical instrument or car, if it’s premium it has something special. And our real inspiration for the future is for sustainability to be the new premium. We have done that with the Vision Efficient Dynamics, because it is a vision for how to make efficiency and dynamics exciting and kind of take the fear out of sustainability. Sustainability should be something we can celebrate.

It shouldn’t be something that is boring, it should be something wonderful.

BMWBLOG: What are you most excited about in terms of future BMW design? Current design?

Anders Warming: Well, I’m most excited about the fact that we have the standing within BMW design to visualize the future. We are not a department within BMW that is just making the skin of the car and we never were. What I am excited about is that this is not styling. We are talking about design, and design is, the way I see it, the perfect balance between technology in any shape, whether it’s steel or hardware, software or plastic or other materials, technology and esthetics. That perfect balance between technology and esthetics is what we do and that’s why I am so excited about BMW design, because we are very close to the engineers and the marketing people.

We have a close tie to what the customer wants and we also know what we can build and we make it look good. At least, we hope so [laughing].

BMWBLOG: Internal design competitions. Can anyone of your team members compete in a design contest?

Anders Warming: Anyone. In my team I have people that work on all product series and concept cars, and I have people that are more detail specific and I have a team that is geared toward M cars and M Sport Packages and all that.

So it is a mix of different groups. But, for example, I have a very good designer in the M team and if a designer from the M team wants to participate in sketches of concept cars, I would never deny him to do that. I would say: “Put your stuff on the wall. Talk to each other. Learn from each other.” Maybe this thing from an M sketch will make our concept for another idea even more valuable because we added the M experience into it.

So the more we can share, the more we can rotate, the more we do that. That’s within the team.

The second thing is that I’m a strong believer in rotation. People have an opportunity to work within all aspects of design (BMW, MINI, Motorcycle, Rolls-Royce) and keep rotating among those design departments and spreading out the experience.

It’s also not in Adrian’s [Von Hooydonk] interest to have all these little teams e.g. MINI team, BMW team etc., because it creates walls. BMW design is not about walls, it’s about sharing. You have to get things done, no doubt, but it is important to learn and share ideas. This seems a little philosophical, but this is what car design is, philosophical and emotional. You are only going to get the best car design if you make people feel happy and committed to their cars. Christian is proud of his interior and Nader is proud of his exterior.

“When we move on in form language and design, we do it for the purpose of developing the company to where the company needs to go…”

You are only going to get beautiful cars that you and I like only if they are happy, if they like it.

BMWBLOG: Are there any new design trends that are becoming hallmark and unique to BMW?

Anders Warming: When BMW does a new generation of cars, it does not intend to change the industry. That is not our purpose. When we move on in form language and design, we do it for the purpose of developing the company to where the company needs to go, independently of the whole world.

We ask ourselves how can we do it better, how can we learn from this and how can we get the best out of it? That for me is very important. I believe BMW has done that. If you look back even before my time at BMW it was clear to see which direction BMW took. When we made huge moves and huge strides, it was because we needed to make those huge strides. We saw ourselves sort of indebted to make those changes happen, and now that we have made them, the steps that we are taking now is to build on that.

The last thing we want to do is change direction after we have started building a portfolio. With that in mind we built the first 6 Series and blasted the doors open and presented it. Over time people confirmed that they were pleased with the 6 Series, so the new 6 Series we would do, would be that but only better.

BMWBLOG: How important is the sporting nature of BMW cars to the current customer base? Is BMW still focused on sporting design, or have other attributes taken focus?

Anders Warming: Sporty, with all due respect, is sort of a bland term. You can describe an X or an M car as sporty. The words I like are “dynamic” and “agile,” and you cross-reference those terms from sports. A runner, a jumper or a swimmer is agile.

In other words, lightweight is for us dynamics. A 7 Series has to be light and agile. Same goes for the 6 Series and the 1 Series Active E. As you can see, it has an electric car.

How light and agile can the 1 Series electric get? It’s fantastic.

BMWBLOG: How will weight reduction influence the design of future BMW Cars?

Anders Warming: Hugely.

I believe we have to merge the concept of sustainability and sustainable materials for the future with light weight and that will be one of the huge further investigations. We have a huge drive within the company; we have a lot of knowledge for example in the M division with carbon fiber, etc. I think the future will be to merge these new technologies, these lightweight and strong technologies with more and more sustainability.

That has to be our goal.

BMWBLOG: How will the use of carbon fiber influence automotive design? Vehicle shapes?

Anders Warming: I think the use of carbon fiber is interesting because you can express a lot of structural rigidity with the material. The look of the material when it’s not painted is also really beautiful. Again, we are looking at technology and esthetics. Another advantage with carbon fiber is the fact that it is very, very light and it gives us more freedom to put things in other places.

For example, the thickness of a section would decrease giving you more space for ergonomics. With thin pillars you have more passage safety, etc. The third thing is that carbon fiber would allow us to work with tight radiuses. For example, if you bend sheet metal you get soft radiuses, but if you have carbon fiber you can actually work with sharp edges as far as form language goes.

Precision and control is BMW.

BMWBLOG: What sets BMW apart from all competition?

Anders Warming: BMW sets itself apart because it’s authentic with a true vision of true vision efficient dynamics. That for me says it all. The same thing goes for the other brands. If you look at the motorcycles, the MINI and Rolls-Royce, they are all clear authentic brands.

BMWBLOG: Describe BMW cars in one word.

Anders Warming: EfficientDynamics!

Source: BMW Blog