Yes the smart car looks fabulously cute and stylish, but it's also terrifically practical as it lets you nip around the city and slide into petite parking spaces.

So this similarly practical yet well-designed product caught our eye, especially as it's perfectly suited to wheelchair uses that could do with a little extra help in certain situations.

The SafeScape Evacuation Chair has been created by a team of designers and engineering students to offer people with reduced or limited mobility a safe, reliable way of being evacuated out of high-rise buildings.

Designers Steven Corraliza, Adam Cassino, Dane Tucker and Nick Rosen worked alongside engineering students from Wayne State University in the USA, with their collective aim to develop an easy-to-use-independently evacuation solution.

The SafeScape Evacuation Chair works by encouraging the person to essentially ‘fall' onto the soft-yet-solid unit, which then powers into action with the hand-drive system letting the user guide themselves safely out of the building using the stairs. The chair can be neatly stowed at strategic points in high-rise buildings with it only being deployed when a bright red tab is removed.

Click here to read about another smart idea designed to increase mobility for wheelchair users.

For more information about the smart fortwo visit thesmart.co.uk.