To celebrate the premiere of the LF-Z Electrified, a battery-electric concept vehicle, Lexus has partnered with three pioneering artists and designers to reimagine the concept car’s interior. Footwear designer Salehe Bembury, digital artist Ondrej Zunka and Japanese fashion label Hender Scheme have all produced virtually rendered interiors for the project.
Lexus claims the program introduces a new approach to design, a synergy between art, fashion, lifestyle and technology that challenges the status quo of the automotive space. The collective of creatives is supposed to exemplify the different aspects of Lexus’s core principles: future-inspired design, Japanese heritage and takumi craftsmanship, and an enhanced human-machine connection.
“LF-Z Electrified embodies the future of the Lexus brand, so it is exciting to see that future represented by such diverse talent across the design space,” said Brian Bolain, general manager at Lexus International. “Each of the collaborators brings a fresh energy that not only reinterprets the interior of the LF-Z but also examines the themes of Lexus’s next chapter.”
Kicking off the series is award-winning footwear designer Salehe Bembury, whose interior design concept brings his nature-inspired design approach to the LF-Z Electrified. Bembury conceptualized a virtual interior that blends a futuristic aesthetic with organic materials alongside his signature use of bright color.
“I want this car to feel like a seamless juxtaposition of machine and nature,” said Bembury. “Equally utilizing the function of the machine and the benefits and nature to fuel and nurture the passengers to their destination.”
The concept uses colors inspired by sandstone landscapes and other natural tones, setting aside traditionally futuristic materials in favor of natural materials like cedar, cork and granite. These natural materials sit alongside textiles and patterns that reference Bembury’s background in sneaker design, such as a ‘hairy’ suede used on the seatbacks, and a fingerprint motif that is often found in the designer’s work, applied for a personalized control panel.
Forgoing traditional notions of car design, Ondrej Zunka’s concept car features space-age mechanisms, sci-fi materials and multidimensional hues that transcend both time and space. “This interior design is purely speculative so I allowed for free associations and pure imagination and creativity,” explained Zunka. “I wanted to make the interior feel as if it wasn’t made by humans, but maybe designed by a sophisticated artificial intelligence. I wanted to go past any known language and design concepts and forget about what is usually used in automotive interior design.”
The tech-forward interior imagines intelligent lighting along the car’s panels, which emits an entirely visceral sensation to regulate mood. Translucent silicone seat cushions with memory-foam-like properties, and a panoramic ceiling crafted from brushed chrome, complete Zunka’s hyper-futuristic vision for the Lexus LF-Z Electrified.
With its deep focus on the natural material characteristics of leather, Tokyo-based fashion label Hender Scheme was a natural fit to reflect Lexus’s Japanese heritage and takumi craftsmanship. Scheme imagined an entirely leather interior juxtaposed with the concept vehicle’s technology. The untreated, organic material will develop a patina over time, deepening in color and becoming unique to each vehicle. The concept reflects the passage of time and the driver’s relationship with the vehicle.
