Turin-based design center CAMAL Studio has designed the new Vortice helicopter concept for historic Italian aviation name Aeroplani Caproni out of the intersection of only two solids, a sphere and a half-torus, collapsing cabin, tail and rotor housing into one continuous surface. Unveiled this year, the concept sets aside the visual clutter that usually defines the category in favor of a formal language closer to sculpture than aerospace engineering. Every curve on the aircraft traces back to that same originating geometry.
The exterior starts from a question the studio set for itself: how to combine greater habitability and visibility with a radical stylistic language, without adding weight. The answer is a minimalist form stripped of ornament, generated where a sphere — the cabin — meets a semi-torus that defines the tail and engine unit. No angles, no sharp edges: each volume runs into the next without interruption, from the landing skids to the tail rotor, so the aircraft reads as one uninterrupted object rather than an assembly of parts.
A fully glazed cabin, conceived as a bubble, is where that geometry becomes habitable. It’s formed by the intersection of the sphere with an inclined plane that crosses it diagonally, stretching the glazing toward the rear until it skirts the rotor area. The cut isn’t only about transparency — it exposes the engine mechanics and seat structure underneath, turning the technical component of the aircraft into part of its visible design rather than something hidden behind cladding.
Inside the cockpit, the priorities shift to ergonomics, simplicity and clarity. The horizontally oriented cockpit is built to stay out of the pilot’s way, limiting both visual clutter and distraction, with clean lines and color choices meant to keep the flying experience legible at a glance rather than decorative.
Pre-flight switches are grouped on the left in the order they’re used; the right side mirrors this with lighting controls and the warning and caution lights. A large circular avionics display sits at the center. The layout treats sequence — what the pilot reaches for first — as a design constraint rather than an afterthought.
The door handles, positioned at the ends of the cockpit, are worked into the same logic of safety through intuitiveness: a combined rotation-and-translation door movement signals to the pilot, physically, that the door has closed properly — a detail that turns a mundane mechanism into confirmation you can feel rather than one you have to check.
A mirrored collective control breaks with a convention of traditional helicopters, where the right collective usually sits between the two seats. Here it’s moved to the side instead, echoing the left control, which frees up the central area for the radio, transponder and circuit breaker panel. The cyclic and collective levers are finished in red, a small, legible cue meant purely for quick identification under pressure.
The studio’s own framing of the Caproni Vortice helicopter concept stays close to that same restraint. “The harmonious meeting of primitive forms and modern style,” says Alessandro Camorali, CAMAL Studio’s director and the project’s lead, describing the idea as a return to essentials rather than a display of complexity. The team behind the design center puts it more bluntly: “We wanted to create something that looked as though it had been sculpted by the wind and simplicity.”
One detail lingers longest: the diagonal cut across the cabin’s glazing, the exact line where the sphere gives way to the machinery it was built to hide, choosing instead to show it.