On-the-Go Meal Experience
In-car meal system · Concept for the Mercedes GLA
A two-part meal box designed around the reality of eating a wrap with one hand at 60 mph.
Context
CMU · Fall 2025
Timeline
6 Weeks
Role
Research + Design
Focus Areas
Automotive interior, CMF, ergonomics, packaging
Tools
SolidWorks · KeyShot · 3D Printing · Rapid Prototyping · Interviews
They’re balancing food on their laps, fumbling one-handed with containers designed for tables, and making a mess in an interior that costs more than the meal.
What would a meal look like if it were designed for the car, not just carried into it?
People who eat in their cars aren’t doing it comfortably.
Arjun Mehta
A routine built around travel, transitions, and the small intervals between destinations. Eating in the car becomes part of the day — not an exception to it.
Problem
Why a wrap.
The wrap isn’t a preference, it’s the constraint. It’s the only meal that genuinely works one-handed: self-contained, no utensils, and you don’t have to look at it to eat it.
Designing for the wrap meant designing for the hardest version of the real situation, and everything else follows for free.
Research
I measured the GLA console in person at a showroom, then tested ideation models and prototypes in a dummy car rig to check reach and opening clearance before committing to a form.
Ideation
The concept moved through different directions before the system found its final split between meal, snack, and one-handed reach.
Design Proposal
A meal system built around reach, not ritual.
Two openings, two reach directions.
The snack container and main compartment open in different directions, driven by the ergonomics of reaching while driving.
Materials + CMF
Tin body, recycled plastic lid.
Durable, sustainable, non-toxic, refined.
In use
The system sits in the Mercedes GLA center console as a stable, reachable part of the interior rather than a portable object looking for somewhere to go.
