Legendary Italian design house, Italdesign, has unveiled its idea of how autonomous vehicles could become a part of next-generation and future civil and residential building structures in the form of Climb-E. Climb-E is conceptualized as a modular means of transport formed of a capsule configured for four people as standard and designed for private use.

It can be connected by a "skid" to other modules when moving to save energy. But it's more than just the living-room on wheels autonomous concepts we've seen before in things like the BMW iNext.

The idea, at its core, is that the capsule could move around a city to dock and merge with destinations as seamless transport. The big idea here is the capsule being lifted into place by hoists built into the architecture if need be, then being used at home as an extension or for other modules that can dock to provide services.

From the architectural perspective, the capsule would be moved up and down on hoists built into office, apartment, and condominium buildings to move it to and from street level. As it would be an EV, the capsule would be connected with a "carrier for longer journeys, such as the hyperloop."

When attached to a home, due to its modularity, Italdesign suggests it can be used as an extension or to bring basic services in, presumably through a spare docking bay, and gives examples like medical care to the home, or dental care, catering services, home massages, veterinary and pet grooming services, and more.

For the Climb-E project, Italdesign acts as the "technology enabler and hub," uniting the Schindler group (specialists in elevators, escalators, and moving walkways), the Italian Department of Architecture and Design, and the Department of Land Science, Design and Policy. The project looks to "a possible future urban scenario directly linked to evolution in the concept of local sustainable urban mobility into continuous sustainable urban mobility."

The best example of docking with a business could be the restaurant idea, where the vehicle could display menus, show the meal being prepared, and have it served up without the occupants leaving their cocoons. Another example given is going out for a karaoke night or having a private disco and buying into the existing idea of "seamless transport" from 2017. Italdesign says that owners would use an app to book trips in or out of town or book a specific service. Hopefully, a track day with a current generation AMG GT-R or something similar.

It's easy to mock a far-reaching concept like this, and we like the fundamental idea, but we do wish that the project members had caught the underlying message in the movie WALL-E before naming it Climb-E.