XC90 interior design leap-frogs the Germans

It has taken an American to guide Swedish firm Volvo on the next leg of its design journey.

Tisha Johnson, Volvo's Chief Designer, Interiors, is a native of California who says she longed to work for Volvo since well before she commenced employment with the manufacturer in 1999. In 2006 she took a step away from direct employment with the firm, but returned in 2010.

Johnson describes the Volvo design team as an "entrepreneurial environment" and says that Volvo's design efforts were previously hamstrung by "bureaucracy" during the Ford years, but her work at Volvo has always been a labour of love, even when it was under Ford's PAG umbrella.

At the time she joined the company it was cool to drive Volvos in North America, whether you happened to be Val Kilmer recreating The Saint on the big screen or Robert Pattinson, playing an infatuated vampire.

Johnson's input has brought to the interior of the new XC90 a combination of features offering a visual and tactile experience practically unmatched by any of its direct competitors. It's not so much that the materials have never been seen before, or the styling owes nothing to the past – far from it. But Johnson and her team have concocted an exceptional look not shared with Volvo's German prestige competitors. It intermingles high-tech ergonomics with standard Volvo hallmarks and signature styling elements taken from other Swedish design icons.

If you liked Volvo's floating fascia, however, it has been relegated to the past, sadly – presumably to make way for the new Sensus Connect infotainment touch screen. But in recompense, the XC90 introduces diamond-cut switchgear, an Orrefors-source crystal gear shift lever and 'Thor's Hammer' day running light arrays for the headlight clusters – all examples of the styling details inherent in the XC90 package.

Speaking with Australian journalists during the global launch of the XC90 last week, Johnson revealed that the new SUV was going to draw upon the manufacturer's Swedish heritage like no Volvo before it. Mostly the legacy from which the XC90 draws its inspiration translates into subtle styling cues played out across and within the new model.

The original P1800 sports car was cited by Johnson as an early high point of Volvo design – although it's hard to see any lingering cues from the Jensen-built car having made the migration to the new XC90. According to Johnson the P1800 is less a pattern to be slavishly reinvented, more a catalyst of sorts.

"We look to it; it's of course an iconic car, but we certainly look to it often as a reminder of our strengths and also to remind us of those really iconic symbols and those cues we come back to – a good platform for our design development."

But the P1800 was the only car from Volvo's past to be mentioned during Johnson's presentation. At no stage did she make mention of the functional but angular 200, 700 and 900 series models that ran from the 1970s right through to the mid-1990s. Nor did she note the part played by Peter Horbury and his well-received S40/V50 models from the late 1990s, let alone the more recent S60/V60 cars.

Rather, Johnson discussed architecture, furniture, glassware... and other non-automotive objet d'art with a design foundation based on the Swedish way of doing things.

"This is where we have so much to draw upon," she said. "As an American, I feel like an absolute student of design constantly, especially living in Sweden, because it's such a design-conscious culture. I think that's where, by contrast... there is a new awareness around design that most people just have, but it's really deeply infused in Swedish culture."

Asked why, in her view, the Swedes have so much to offer the world of design, Johnson painted a picture of a nation very committed to planning, organisation, forethought and pragmatism.

"Swedes are a very thoughtful group of people... Swedes really move with a kind of exactitude. They do things not so much [through] experimenting and mistake, but thinking and executing. That, for whatever reason – I couldn't answer that – is part of their psyche."

Johnson explained that Swedish design in general is strongly influenced by architecture – and particularly architecture pertaining to the domestic idyll of modest decoration in an open space. But the Swedes' "deep connection with the environment" leads to a need to bring the great outdoors inside, "blurring the distance between the outside world and the inside."

In essence, the XC90 design attempts to capture that comfort, functionality and spaciousness apparently a common touch in Swedish homes.

For the XC90, Volvo has embraced three themes that have been previously rolled into three concept vehicles, the Concept Coupe, the XC Coupe Concept and the Concept Estate. The Concept Coupe – a modern-day P1800 design study – represents Scandinavian Authority, which Johnson describes as "confidence without cockiness". She remarked about the concept car that it's "slightly understated but strong" and "you can definitely see the self-assuredness of it".

The theme represented in the XC Coupe Concept is 'Scandinavian Activity', which Johnson describes as "very connected to the natural environment". It's a reflection of the Swedes' passion for fitness, and recreational activities such as cross-country skiing or cycling.

The Concept Estate embodies 'Scandinavian Creativity' – the third theme. It is, Johnson says, all about "uniquely executed artistry and craftsmanship in Sweden" and comprises "full voluptuous forms that still have a 'strictness' to them".

All three themes have been integrated in the XC90 design. Key elements of the overall design include "strong proportion" (being a "good ratio of dash to axle") and the clamshell bonnet capping the grille, which Johnson says is "nestled into the fascia".

"We let the design happen – and hopefully that makes a good connection" with open-plan architectural designs and "very clean graphic symbols".

Although it would be easily overlooked, the Volvo badge on the XC90's grille has been refashioned in a modern style that places different emphasis on the constituent parts of the company logo.

"We had the iron mark [the arrow symbol] – and it was pointed in one direction – and then we had the shield running across in another direction. Then we had this very strong graphic of the word mark 'Volvo', running in a very dominant position, horizontally," Johnson explained. The iron mark is an ancient chemistry symbol for the element and is also associated with Mars and the male gender.

"We redesigned that and cleaned everything up. We aligned the iron mark with that band running across, and we took the word mark and put it inside the iron mark – so that brought its dominance down in the whole set-up.

"Now you're focusing on a [simpler] element that you can take in more easily."

Johnson's lead in interior design will naturally flow through to other Volvo models, as will many of the high-tech comfort, convenience and safety features introduced with the new XC90. But some of the strengths of the XC90 will be sidelined in lower-cost models of course. The Volvo designer believes however that the fundamentals will remain.

"We always have a certain level of amenities, materials and also features that are in there," she said, but admitted that the SUV's ultra-swank Bowers & Wilkins audio systems "won't always be available in certain configurations".

Core to Volvo design will be "the Sensus touch screen technology" and "high-end fine materials" such as leather, wood and metal.

Sensus Connect and "good quality materials" will trickle down to smaller, more affordable cars in the Volvo range, including those to be built on the CMA platform.

During the Q&A session following the presentation, motoring.com.au asked Johnson how Volvo would go about bringing the new design cues and features to lower-priced cars in its model range. Would it be by means of manufacturing efficiencies, or re-positioning the cars higher in the market?

"We do leverage technologies on the manufacturing side that help us still retain those quality materials and attributes we're talking about," she replied. "But also, Volvo [invests] in our cars and we're not a brand that has so many cars on the road that they will leverage the economy of scale and cut quality. We don't do that; it's not who we are."