Better Place

Better Place was a visionary electric vehicle infrastructure company that advanced the most structurally ambitious answer to transportation electrification proposed before its collapse in 2013: a network of battery-switch stations that would allow electric vehicles to exchange depleted batteries for fully charged ones in minutes, eliminating the range anxiety constraining early EV adoption. Founded by Shai Agassi, the company secured significant investment and government partnerships in Israel and Denmark before the operational and commercial realities of its model proved insurmountable.

The studio's engagement with Better Place encompassed the full breadth of a design systems relationship. The scope ranged from digital user interface design to print production, from the development of a custom icon library comprising more than 200 symbols for the company's proprietary navigation system, to interior office design. The breadth of the brief reflected the company's ambition: a new infrastructure category requires a new visual language across every point of contact, from the screen a driver consults to the physical environment in which the company operates. The studio constructed that language with the comprehensiveness the challenge demanded, producing a body of work that stands as a document of one of the most consequential, if ultimately unrealized, attempts to redesign the systems through which people move through cities.

Commissioned by Roof.