They say that the mark of an excellent restaurant isn’t necessarily in the quality of the dishes that are produced on the stoves – though that is a fairly good indication, of course – but the inspiration that’s imparted to its line of cooks and the careers they go on to have themselves. In comparative terms, at least if you read between the lines, the virtues of Polestar – the Volvo-owned electric-car marque from Sweden – aren’t confined to just its sparse Scandinavian aesthetic or its capacity to counterbalance a green spirit with a sporty performance. They also bleed into the influence that the venture is having on the wider design community.
Though its lineup of cars – including its inaugural creation, a 2+2 seater grand tourer coupé; and the new Polestar 4, its fastest production car to date, hitting 0–62mph in just 3.8 seconds – is the main draw card, it’s the Polestar Design Contest, a sort of spinoff incubator, that’s perhaps having the biggest impact from a grassroots perspective.
Introduced in 2020, the annual competition for students and professionals was set up as a way to encourage those in the community to formulate innovative solutions for a more sustainable, electric-powered future. Contestants used the debut theme of ‘pure’ as a launchpad to create a new Polestar – not necessarily in car form – that could be used in 2040.
There was a brutalist-style electric yacht, with hard lines that contrasted against the soft flow of the surrounding water; an airship that looked like a cross between a flatscreen monitor and a prop from a Star Wars set; and a pod-like vehicle with a pared-down, boxy shell featuring a cylindrical intervention towards the front.
One of the winning entries in the inaugural Polestar Design Contest
2021’s theme of ‘progressive’ saw a futuristic garage hub, styled in the Mies van der Rohe spirit, that combined a charging station with a brand experience centre. There was also a tree house erected around a tree trunk in a Finnish village, a fully formed realisation of Kristian Talvitie’s entry.
One of the winning entries in the 2021 Polestar Design Contest
The 2022-23 instalment revolved around the notion of ‘performance’. The brief stated that ‘the paradigm of “performance” has shifted from the high-consumption performance of the 20th century. This design must embody that shift’ – in other words, producing something where the technical aspects, as well as the user experience, aligned with the electric age. A full-size model, billed as Polestar Synergy, took the top gong.
The Polestar Synergy
A fantasy supercar with aggressive, powerful lines, Polestar Synergy sits somewhere between Formula 1 and Tron, and is the cumulation of three entries. Exteriors were by Swapnil Desai (who emphasised a sense of timelessness) and Devashish Deshmukh (his raised front fenders take their cues from a hammerhead shark), with interiors by Yingxiang Li (focus was on keeping the driver calm and in control). The model was showcased in Munich, in 2023.
This year sees Polestar team up with Hot Wheels – the toymaker whose products have been a staple of living-room floors for close to six decades – with entries based on childhood imagination. The winning design will be recreated as a die-cast collectible and folded into the Mattel brand’s range. “Dreams have the power to inspire and transport us beyond what we thought possible,” says Maximilian Missoni, Polestar’s head of design. “This is a chance for all participating designers to really push that Polestar envelope and let their imagination run riot.”
This feature was taken from our Spring 2024 issue. Read more about it here.
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