Art Students Re-imagine Airstreams

Art Students Re-imagine Airstreams
Airstream trailers, the iconic mobile homes pulled along on 1950s vacations, received 21st century updates from Pasadena Art Center College of Design students Friday.

"Airstream Innovation,' renderings and models of the trailers re-imagined, were on show for the day at Art Center's downtown campus.

Product design major Gina Kim stood in front of a green poster promoting a "Secret Garden.' Growing up in Korea, Kim didn't know Americans once packaged their wanderlust into rolling aluminum tents. Once in the class, she became intrigued by the trailers' off-highway lives in back yards and driveways.

She decided women needing time alone could find a use for dormant Airstreams.

"What if you turned it into a rejuvenating spa center you could hop into after work?' she said.

Bamboo bordered her design's dining area. The bedroom was a nest of foam. A tropical mist sprayed around a large bathtub.

Kim's instructor, Sueann Valentine, knows about having extra Airstreams. She's collected four trailers since starting her hobby of restoring them last year.

Valentine considers these relics "a wave of the future' as more people in traffic-clogged cities work on the road. Designing mobile businesses is practical, she said.

Many students agreed. Few created living spaces. "Beat Box,' for example, was a deejay booth w