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Designmart
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Japan, known for its innovative gadgetry, also makes tech products that use common materials in unexpected, humanistic ways.
With its boxy shape and supercute details, Nissan’s Cube is like Hello Kitty on wheels. But this five-seat car is no child’s toy. The third-generation model—which went on sale in the United States last May, the first time the Cube has been available outside Japan—rethinks everything from the lighting to the rear hatch door. The inspiration for the car’s oversize seats and guitar-shaped cabin came to Tadamasa Hayakawa while he was on vacation. “To chill out one day, I had beer in a bath on the balcony of my hotel room,” the interior designer says. He decided that he wanted to re-create that feeling in the car. So he came up with a look that he called “sofas in a Jacuzzi.” (“Frankly, I didn’t imagine that this proposal might be accepted,” he laughs.) John Sahs, who helped design the car’s exterior, had a similar moment. Looking at the Cube’s stout silhouette, he was reminded of a bulldog with its paws planted on the ground. In his mind, he put a pair of sun-glasses on the dog to increase its charm: that inspired the shape of the front grille. Such highly personal touches thread through the car’s design, from its velourlike upholstery (a throwback to the velvet seats at a café Hayakawa frequented as a preteen) to the recurring ripple motif (meant to symbolize human connectedness). Here we walk you through the geometry of the Cube.
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