Aircraft Interiors
Overview
Throughout the transport sector there is a universal drive to improve environmental performance and embrace more sustainable solutions. Beyond high level research programmes into alternative fuels and power sources, this can take the form of innovative engineering and materials science to reduce the weight of on-board monuments and mechanisms, or inspired creativity to deliver more space efficient LOPAs. In all cases, environmental improvements must be achieved without adversely affecting the passenger experience.
Increasingly in the development of new aircraft interiors, we need to adopt eco-design tactics that will improve the total lifecycle and end-of-life performance of our design solutions. This means adopting lower impact resources such as bio-polymers and recycled materials where we can, and reducing the material and energy consumption during production. It requires strategies to increase product life and encourage repair and re-use. And we need to target end-of-life recycling by designing from the outset for easy disassembly and minimising material variants to simplify separation and reprocessing.
The exciting opportunities which arise from these new challenges are helping us empower the brands we partner with, encouraging positive movement towards a more sustainable future.
Prototyping and testing
At DCA, we utilise our extensive in-house facilities, tools and skills to create a wide range of rigs, models and prototypes as an integral part of our design and development process. These can range from simplified ergonomic rigs and cabin layout models to fully functional representative prototypes, for example of a new business class passenger seat environment.
Such physical rigs, models and prototypes allow us to practically assess and thoroughly test our concepts in their initial stages. Good solutions can be rapidly enhanced and refined. Flawed concepts can be quickly identified and moved on from.
The speed and efficiency with which we achieve this practical testing of ideas is key to our design and engineering process, enabling us to fast-track innovation for you, whilst managing and reducing the risk that is always inherent in new product development.
Evolving your brand
In any aircraft interior design project, we will look to reflect, develop and enhance your established brand to offer an outstanding air travel experience. To do this we leverage your company heritage, while supporting the implementation of strategies aimed at advancing and evolving your brand, a transition requiring sensitive navigation and the broad skillset that DCA offers.
Part of any integrated brand strategy must focus on elevating the service provided to your customers. We believe that significant service advances should be rooted in research activities that look to explore passenger preferences and your cabin crew’s requirements in order to deliver these. The intelligent application of these research insights means we can tailor service experiences to individual user needs and preferences.
CMF strategy
Our CMF solutions are designed to excite and endure. Taking cues from parallel luxurious interiors, we consider the details and delicate touches that communicate quality and care, evoking an emotional response from passengers as they interact with an environment designed to make them feel special, individual and considered.
All materials used in our projects are selected for the response they elicit now and the longevity with which they will continue to do this. As material technology is refined and developed, we are able to introduce luxurious finishes and textures without compromising on durability or maintenance, which will be essential in meeting your sustainability goals. Of course, overlaid across all our CMF choices are the environmental drivers to reduce, reuse and recycle.
These exciting advances allow the expression of brand ethos through the careful curation of materials, supporting the creation of the spacious, coherent and functional interiors desired by you and your customers.
Material technology advances allow us to introduce luxurious finishes and textures without compromising on durability or maintenance
Communicating ideas
Communicating our design ideas to you and the other project stakeholders in flexible and accessible ways throughout the development programme is essential. Regular cycles of review and refinement provide focused feedback, which helps us tailor our designs to the requirements of your target passengers, your crew, your brand champions and your suppliers.
Our in-house capabilities include computer visualisation, virtual reality and augmented reality models created by our multimedia team to increasing degrees of fidelity at every stage of the project. These virtual models are backed up by physical rigs and mock-ups, including hybrid prototypes that combine basic, low-fidelity physical mock-ups with virtual reality to deliver a fully immersive user experience as early as possible in the development programme.
The visibility these techniques give to our design team and all other project stakeholders helps with effective ideation and problem-solving, enabling informed decision making throughout the development process.
Working as an integrated team
Virtual Reality is used as a working tool to great effect in our design process, allowing full immersion and engagement with potential solutions in a realistic 3-dimensional space while a concept is in its initial phases. By testing and exploring early concepts together as an integrated team in this way, we can gain insights which allow us to optimise and refine the developing interior environments, based on inputs from all the interested parties.
New information technology is also playing an active role in improving communication and integration, with collaboration tools allowing the interactive sharing of feedback on ideas, visual images and technical data from all relevant parties. Previously, feedback from a broader audience - as opposed to the core project team - was difficult to collate and incorporate at an appropriate stage of the design process, but a central shared cloud-based forum now provides a direct and engaging route for the exchange of value-adding ideas.
Featured
World class expertise built on 60+ years experience
