For Design Miami, the Land Rover marque debuted a new monochromatic edition of the brand’s flagship Range Rover that incorporated elements of the brand’s modernist principles. The powerful Range Rover SV Black was parked as the centerpiece for the installation themed “Dipped in Black” — an homage to the landmarked Seagram Building. The Range Rover was backlit with golden hues and surrounded by objects that represented contributions from galleries and designers represented in the Miami fair. As part of the installation, the British sound design studio Father riffed off on cutting-edge vehicle features to build ethereal tones inside the walled-off space.
The Range Rover SV Black offers haptics that emanate from floor mats and a bespoke scent made by Aeir. Will Verity, Brand Design Chief for Range Rover, was on site at Design Miami. His work intersects with all elements of the brand, including the Miami installation. We spoke to Verity about the Range Rover nameplate’s immersion in the industrial design community and the common threads that connect objects, architecture, and vehicles.
Will Verity on Designing in Dialogue with Architecture
Courtesy of Range Rover.
WHITEWALL: How does coming to a design fair influence your work?
WILL VERITY: Design for Range Rover is a foundational pillar of what we are, right? There’s only ever been five generations of Range Rover. All share the same DNA. The challenge is how you reinterpret that through regulation or new technology and how that shapes the vehicle itself. Today, automotive is more than just the product. It’s a total experience. It fits into your life. You need to approach it in a different way, where you start to design with multidisciplinary teams touching every kind of element of a customer journey. It’s a very different thing from designing the vehicle in the 1970s. They would have had a completely different set of constraints and experiences they were trying to create than today.
WW: This installation was inspired by the Seagram Building, designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. How did you conceptualize this installation?
WV: Modernism for Range Rover is an important pillar of the way that we would approach design, taking a less-is-more approach, being super reductive with the way that we design. We’ve always looked at modernism for inspiration. When we started to think about this, it was linked to American modernism, and the Seagram building has been a huge inspiration to us, having a very reductive approach. What we were linking to is that it’s black, it’s a building, it’s very bold as a staple as a piece of architecture. It has these golden date lines within the building itself, which referenced the kind of golden data gallery space that we have there. Yeah, I mean, it’s a fantastic piece of architecture.
Co-Curating Objects, Community, and Craft
Courtesy of Range Rover.
WW: How were those smaller objects selected or curated?
WV: We co-curated it with Design Miami, the fair, and incorporated exhibitors within the fair. We like to not just show something in the design world, but feel like we’re part of that community as well. It’s not just showing for us — it’s sharing the platform with other people.
WW: Being a designer here, are you looking around and seeing things that impress you?
WV: I was just looking at the Design Miami 2.0 space. It’s really good. I think it’s important that design fairs give space for emerging designers to show because they can be quite closed.
“The interior of the car is a piece of interior design in a wider sense,”
-Will Verity
WW: Car design, especially interiors, has changed so much. You don’t necessarily have to be a car enthusiast to pursue car design. Is this some place that you might even think about sourcing talent?
WV: My background is actually in furniture. I came from the furniture industry — industrial design. It is definitely where we would look to source talent or source inspiration. It is changing beyond just automotive schools. The interior of the car is a piece of interior design in a wider sense.
Materiality, Interior Architecture, and the Future of Automotive Design
Courtesy of Range Rover.
WW: Especially when you look at all the technology and how the auto industry has evolved.
WV: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, that’s the opportunity that you have through technology to strip everything out, to reduce the number of knobs and dials in that kind of functional way and create something that’s a super reductive, actually a piece of architecture.
WW: Where did you do your design training?
WV: Center St. Martin’s in London, and then I also studied at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne.
WW: Do you still make furniture, too?
WV: I wish I had time to do that.
“You live in this world of texture when you’re not playing with color,”
-Will Verity
WW: Does the exterior Range Rover SV Black theme carry over into (the vehicle) interior as well?
WV: The idea was that we would transfer the materiality from the vehicle to the interior. The embroidery is incredible. That is the interesting thing with black. You live in this world of texture when you’re not playing with color. Black is the absence of light, isn’t it? It’s the absence of anything.
WW: Did you have a designer who stood out to you at Design Miami?
WV: Steven Burks Man Made at Alpi for Design 2.0. I think we’ve actually worked with Alpi to produce veneers. Particularly, what we’re interested in for the future is how you can elevate the execution of craft within the vehicle, how you can look at materiality from this world and bring it into the vehicle somewhere. Working with companies like that, that have industrial craft, is important to have that dialogue.
Courtesy of Range Rover.
