Milan Design Week: What Lexus is already thinking about the next generation of car design

Creative Boom: News Product Milan Design Week: What Lexus is already thinking about the next generation of car design These dramatic concepts point to how emerging tech will fundamentally change the interior space of cars. Written By: Tom May 21 April 2026 Most of us will never be able to afford a Lexus. That's fine; we probably can't afford a Balenciaga runway look either. But just as those high-end catwalk pieces shape the cut, fabric and detailing of what ends up on the high street, what Lexus does at the sharp end of design genuinely matters—even if you'll never sit in one of its cars.

Which is why, if you care about design, innovation or simply where the future of everyday experience is heading, the brand's 2026 presence at Milan Design Week deserves your full attention. I was there for the press preview at Superstudio Più in the Tortona district of the Italian city. And what struck me most wasn't the craftsmanship on display, impressive as it is. It was the clarity of the idea underpinning everything. Space: the final frontier of luxury? The centrepiece of this year's showcase is an installation simply called SPACE.

It's inspired by the new Lexus LS Concept, the brand's latest flagship, and there's one detail chief branding officer Simon Humphries shared that I keep turning over. The 'S' in LS no longer stands for 'Sedan': it now stands for 'Space.' That's not just marketing wordplay: it's a signal about where Lexus believes luxury is going. The idea is that premium cars of the future won't be defined by external body shape or engine configuration, but by the quality of the experience within the cabin itself. Lexus LS Concept Think about that for a moment in the context of where automotive technology is headed.

The advent of autonomous driving—still a work in progress but an increasingly credible, near-future reality—is going to fundamentally change what a car is. If you no longer need to hold the wheel, watch the road or operate the controls, the interior of the vehicle becomes something else entirely: a room, a retreat, a personal sanctuary that just happens to be moving through a city, the countryside, or across a range of mountains. Lexus seems to be thinking about that already, and I reckon that's smart. The autonomous pivot Right now, most car interiors are still fundamentally designed around the act of driving.

Seats face forward, controls cluster around the driver, and any passenger luxury is secondary to the demands of operation. Even in the most opulent current Lexus, the dominant experience is one of orientation toward the windscreen. Lexus LS Micro Concept Remove the obligation to drive, though, and the whole logic of the interior dissolves and reforms. Seats might face each other, like a first-class railway carriage. The floor becomes genuinely usable. The ceiling becomes expressive. Sound, lighting and materials take on a new primacy because they're no longer competing with the sensory demands of driving.

These are the kind of things Lexus is clearly thinking about, and the Milan installations make some of their ideas concrete and visible. The LS Concept interior on show reveals wide, throne-like seats with warm wood accents and a spaciousness that owes more to a boutique hotel suite than a traditional car cabin. It's a space you'd want to spend time in, even when it's stationary. Another expression of this thinking is a micro-mobility pod designed around a single occupant seated in hushed, panelled stillness. A third is a catamaran concept where the same focus on interior space is applied to a vessel on water.

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Lexus's focus on interior experience over traditional design elements represents a significant shift in luxury automotive branding, making it highly relevant and impactful for brand strategy professionals.