Kelly Wearstler designs a desert-inspired virtual garage for the Hummer EV

Set to launch in fall 2021, the new Hummer EV Edition 1 will be the world's first zero-emissions, all-electric super truck, paving the way for a new era in automotive design. With all the excitement and media frenzy around this game-changing release, it's no surprise that Kelly Wearstler - one of the most recognisable names in the design world - was enlisted to envision a home for this new, much anticipated addition to Hummer’s line of pickup trucks.

In a 30-second virtual showcase, the celebrated American designer depicts the new Hummer EV driving along on a trail that snakes its way through scrub-covered hills in the Southern California desert - serving as an ideal setting to showcase the vehicle's sturdiness and off-road suitability. A set of glossy interlocked bronze gates, shaped like an ‘H’ in Hummer's distinctive insignia, reflect the truck's glowing silhouette, breaking apart to reveal a driveway leading to the garage-home hybrid.

An aerial shot outlines the structure's angular shell of sleek bronze metal that contrasts its rough, arid context - an ultramodern aesthetic that is evocative of a dystopian sci-film, inspired by the bronze highlights of the Hummer EV's interiors. Subsequently, the driveway leading towards it is illuminated by vertical lighting strips embedded in its ravine-like enclosing parallel walls, which cast bands of light across the road.

The garage's interiors are a blend of Modernism, reflecting Wearstler's distinct design sensibility, merging classical and contemporary influences to reimagine the idea of a habitable space. Drawing from the textures of the desert landscape, the design incorporates travertine flooring and a sand-coloured plaster for its walls and ceilings. The earthy materials serve as a counterpoint to the cast glass elevators and stairway in the structure's living space.

Wearstler has designed the garage imagining basketball player LeBron James, the ambassador for the Hummer EV, to be living there.

Treated as a centrepiece that complements the space's stylised design, the Hummer EV rises atop a circular platform to the structure's upper level, through an oculus-like opening in its ceiling. Delta wood beams line this level's trellised roof, periodically supported by structural elements with an aluminium foam textured finish that references the automobile in an innovative way. Featuring CGI models of some of Wearstler’s own furniture such as the ‘Echo’ bench and ‘Monolith’ side table, alongside Erik Olovsson’s ‘Drill Vases’, Willy Guhl's Loop Chair, and the Etcetera Chair by Jan Ekselius, the design pairs novel with vintage to create a space that serves as the perfect backdrop for the Hummer EV.

(Text by Jerry Joe Elengical, intern at STIRworld.com)