Olivier Peyricot has created the ultimate way to 'go slow' in the city with his automobile concept Slow Rider. The project's manifesto and various components were conceived for humans in the first decade of the 22nd century, when (in the words of the manifesto) "the frenetic pace of urban civilization will finally give way to a desire for less power." But at slowLab, we think the ideas are as relevant and much-needed today as they may be in Peyricot's imagined future.

With Slow Rider, Peyricot physically deconstructs the car and re-builds it as a purveyor of slow living. A stripped-down motor is mounted on the back of a vehicle or exchanged for a refrigerator generator. The hood is removed and the chassis sawed down to make way for front-mounted seats. In motion, such a car roams the city like a motorized flâneur. At rest in a parking spot, the car becomes a piece of street furniture that invites the public to relax or play on its surfaces.

As automobiles increasingly wreak havoc on both the environment and the social quality of the places we inhabit, Slow Rider offers an alternative vision for motorized transport in daily life: slowing people down and offering up both time and a physical site for playfulness and conviviality.

Learn more about Slow Rider and listen to the super-cool SlowRider remix by Rodolphe Burger>

related: read Ivan Illich's Energy and Equity