Sustainability 04.08.2021 4 MIN

Experience Circularity:
with The Circular Heroes.

The designer Patricia Urquiola has aimed to make the BMW Group’s Circular Design principles playfully tangible by developing four exciting characters for the RE:BMW Circular Lab.

The BMW Group invites people to come to a deeper awareness of sustainable action and circular thinking with the new “RE:BMW Circular Lab” communication and experience platform. The Circular Heroes give RE:BMW Circular Lab users the exciting opportunity to familiarise themselves with the principles of circular design in a unique way. Empowering circular design is an essential step in our transformation process towards a sustainable circular economy.

The BMW Group is fundamentally shifting its entire design strategy philosophy with Circular Design: it stands for a new way of thinking about all activities, fully focusing on circularity in all its processes and far beyond, coming up with new materials, new technologies, new processes, new approaches and new ideas. “Circular Design is all about creating more with less; fewer resources, more emotion,” says Adrian van Hooydonk, Senior Vice President of BMW Group Design, explaining the fascination of Circular Design.

Four Circular Heroes – four approaches

The Circular Heroes design, conceived by the Milan-based architect and designer Patricia Urquiola, stands for the different ways in which parts and materials are connected – each character representing a different approach:

“Dash”, friendly like a pet and made of foam, straps and zips gives an air of informality.

“Ace” is all about connection, a dynamic figure developed from graphically interpreted strips of material.

“Stardust” evolves and moves like a dynamic, infinitely-changing system, extending its screw-squeeze connector branches at will.

“Comet” is an elegant figure made up of organic shapes and adorned with luminous and alluring accessories.

The development and implementation of the Circular Heroes is not the first creative collaboration between Patricia Urquiola and Adrian van Hooydonk: They share a common vision of a people-centred approach. Patricia Urquiola has already brought outstanding projects to life for the Salone del Mobile and in the BMW Welt Museum. Courage and experimentation always stand front and centre: “Whenever I work with BMW, I learn something new about mobility and the possibilities it offers, but this project is extraordinary,” says Urquiola. “I had the opportunity to experiment, work with utopian designs and even venture beyond the boundaries of design.”

Focus on single-variety, recyclable materials

This creative approach conveys the actual core and principles of Circular Design in a playful way. It is all about the choice and use of single-variety materials, using fewer materials with different properties and as many materials as possible that are already in the cycle: recycled plastic, recycled aluminium, recycled steel. The focus is always on avoiding waste in production. The BMW Group also wants to pave the way for Joyful Fusions. The BMW Group uses this term to define a design that can be dismantled and recycled: as components become easier to separate from each other, they can also be more easily reintroduced into the cycle. It’s about the art of reduction and developing a system that provides access to components so that the process of Circular Design never ends.

The BMW Group sees the RE:BMW Circular Lab and the Circular Heroes as an invitation to join it on the circular path and shape the future – with the goal of discovering new perspectives together.

Discover the RE:BMW Circular Lab and the Circular Heroes now: www.bmw.com/circular-lab