Female designers focus on Lincoln interior as “fourth space”

For its 2009 MKS sedan and MKT utility concept vehicle, Lincoln is touting interiors “inspired by the latest trends in contemporary home design,” based on the notion that automobiles have become “the fourth space.” Home, the workplace, and a favored leisure location occupy spaces one, two and three.

Three female designers led the development of the MKT. Joann Jung was responsible for the instrument panel and crystal-inspired center console that runs the length of the vehicle and “creates a feeling of continuity between the upper and lower portion of the cabin, as if all the occupants of the cabin were sitting together in a living room.” A patented solid-state lighting technology allows 3-D projection on a contoured surface and displays information using intuitive shapes and spaces on the center stack.

"It's very personal to me,” said Jung. “It's like opening my own room to the public. But I want to share it."

The top of the instrument panel in the MKS is hand-wrapped in leatherette finished with an intricate deck seam, a technique normally reserved for show and custom cars.