With Umbría, passive cooling and sustainability is tangible.
Umbría
Degree Project
2026
In an increasingly hotter world, our default response is active cooling, yet every unit of air conditioning we add generates the emissions that drive further warming, creating a cooling paradox. UMBRÍA confronts this with a shift in design philosophy: from active cooling toward passive adaptation. Rather than fighting heat with more technology, this vehicle concept for the 2030s asks what cars could learn from climates that have managed heat for millennia. It looks into existing forms of adaptation in architecture and relevant materials, translating these proven principles into a vehicle designed to work with the sun rather than against it.
Project information
By the 2030s, Andalucía will spend an increasing share of the year in conditions where a sealed vehicle parked in direct sun becomes physiologically unsafe within minutes. The conventional automotive response, running air conditioning harder against a hotter outside, drives a feedback loop between cooling demand and the emissions that warm the climate further. Umbría proposes a different premise: that a vehicle interior should adapt to extreme heat the way Andalusian architecture has for centuries, by working with shade, ventilation and thermal mass rather than against them.
The project develops a concept vehicle interior built around passive cooling principles drawn from regional vernacular building. The user case is grounded in a recorded interview with an Andalusian farmer and applied through a representative persona, allowing the design to engage with documented working conditions.
The result is a cabin treated as a small mobile building rather than a sealed metal box: an exoskeletal thermal frame that channels stack-effect ventilation, a retractable solar chimney, a phase-change thermal core that absorbs and releases heat across the day, deployable awnings, and a rear seats configuration that opens into a hammock for the midday halt. The intent is not to replace air conditioning, but to reduce its load to a fraction of current levels, proposing passive thermal architecture as a viable design direction for vehicles operating in the world’s warming climates.
UID26 | Yishun Dai – Grad project presentation
Form exploration and sketches made during ideation.
The front space is characterized by the mycelium composites and cork panels.
The seats are designed with breathability in mind with the mesh cover and mycelium foam cushions with air channels.
The cooling structure reads as one continuous architectural element with the cabin sitting inside.
Extendable roof panels blocks sunlight from hitting the interior.
Passive cooling is possible thanks to the stack effect from the cooling structure and the phase-change material core.
The rear space adapts to what the user needs with three different layouts.
An enclosed, shaded interior built into a vehicle for maximum comfort.
Umbría transforms into a space for a comfortable siesta when the user is in the middle of the countryside.
