• The interior design of the CUPRA Terramar is inspired by nature and comes to life on an empty table before it takes shape in the final model
• Francesca Sangalli, head of Colour & Trim Concept & Strategy at CUPRA, takes us on a creative journey through the moodboard of the brand’s sporty SUV
• The CUPRA Terramar has three essential pillars that complement each other - lightweight structure, embracing musculature and striking details in copper

“It all starts with an image, a texture, a sound; an inspiration that comes from the essence of raw, unaltered nature, which helps us to express the emotions we want to achieve.” Francesca Sangalli contemplates the large bare table in front of her, like a blank canvas that’s waiting to be filled and endowed with meaning. The head of Colour & Trim Concept & Strategy at CUPRA is about to dive into the process of recreating the moodboard that culminated in the interior design materiality of the CUPRA Terramar. “A moodboard is never static; it evolves with the design. We gradually build it and develop it throughout the creative process” she explains as she arranges fabrics, structures, cut-outs and photos that served as inspiration to shape the story behind the brand’s sporty SUV.

100% CUPRA styling. The Interior Design and Colour & Trim departments worked in tandem to create the car’s interior elements. “At CUPRA we’ve always understood that the interior finishes must be consistent with a car’s structural design and vice versa; form and substance must respond to the same goals and communicate with each other” says Francesca. In this sense, the CUPRA Terramar has three essential pillars - lightweight structure, embracing musculature and striking details. “These pillars are never independent, but interact with each other” she explains. “Depending on how we combine their elements, we can create different feels and a unique character for each model, but always reflecting the essence of CUPRA” says the designer. 

Lightweight structure. Francesca places a piece of the CUPRA Terramar’s centre console in the middle of the table. It’s a prime example of the first pillar, which seeks to highlight the visual structure of the car’s interior. “Harnessing technology such as parametric design in the quest for inspiration, we can create structures with 3D graphic elements, which give texture and a sense of movement, with a raw, exposed effect.” Rather than using additive techniques that cover and dress the parts, in the traditional sense of ‘embellishing’, CUPRA seeks to highlight the authentic beauty of these parts, without the need to add layers. “In this way, we create living, dynamic elements with added value that contribute to the hierarchy of the interior from the very moment of inception” she explains.

Embracing musculature. The second key factor focuses on the soft, more tactile parts, which contrast with the firmness of the structures. In this sense, added value is boosted through the way fabrics and patterns are used in the interior “with techniques such as embossing, debossing, perforations or even embroidery, to achieve greater sophistication” says Francesca while running her hands over the textures. All these graphic elements generate continuity, “without any double stitching to disturb the balance of the interior, nor isolating the soft trim from the volume achieved with the robust parts” she adds. 

Striking details. The copper-coloured parts stand out against the other elements as Francesca arranges them on the table. This is the third fundamental pillar of the CUPRA Terramar’s materiality, and one of the brand’s signature features. “Our colours are elegant and neutral; we work on them to find the right nuances, emphasising their finishes beyond their chromatic value” says Francesca. That’s why copper details are so important, “they help us to highlight the focal points in the design that define CUPRA and make our brand fully recognisable in combination with the other two pillars” she says.

There’s no more empty space on the table. Now it’s covered with textured parts, scraps of fabric, copper details and the images that inspired the design of the CUPRA Terramar. They’re all part of the dynamic creative process in which technology enables us to reinterpret the essence of nature to achieve something totally new. “It’s the starting point in the story of a model that embodies authenticity in every aspect of its design” concludes Francesca.