Edinburgh Napier University

  Coventry University has a successful three decade history in graduating industrial designers primarily in the automotive and transport sectors; increasingly these skills are being recognised as relevant to the design of marine vehicles. Primarily the intent was to use these techniques for aesthetic development tools, however in practice they also brought to light additional specific benefits to marine design and to the fairing of these surfaces such as hull forms. The conjunction of semi-rigid foam, automotive clay and computer model visualisation allows controlled development of complex surfaces and their intersections allowing visual auditing of form at an early stage of the design process. This paper will discuss a number of case studies where these techniques have been applied and explore their benefits.