Hasta La Ideas

Footwear designer Liz Ciokajlo used natural fibres from coconut husks and flax to create this shoe collection (+ slideshow).

Liz Ciokajlo mixed fibrous materials with bio-resin to set each shoe in a continuous piece.

“In the women’s footwear world the materials are usually just leather or synthetics, so these other natural materials give a softer approach that is more feminine,” the designer said.

After experiments mixing a selection of fibres in various densities with bio-resin, she created firm but flexible materials to mould into shoes.

“By concentrating the fibres and adding binders, the properties and characteristics could change, producing both soft and hard material over one continuous surface,” said Ciokajlo.

Even though each design looks solid, the heels are hollow to reduce weight and allow air to flow up through holes in the insoles.

Wool felt lining protects the feet from the scratchy fibres used for the heels and uppers, and a couple of pairs are made entirely from this softer textile.

The felt was steamed and then moulded with gauze, a technique often used in millinery design. In some cases it was dyed to contrast with the muted colours of the natural materials.

Coconut husk mixed with latex was formed around a mould designed using computer software to create the heel and sides of one pair.

Shoes in hardened flax and sculpted hemp made in the same way also feature in the collection, along with leather elements.

We featured footwear with platform heels made from porcelain earlier this month and recently we ran a feature about shoes designed by architects such as Zaha Hadid and Oscar Niemeyer.

Photos are by Stephanie Potter Corwin.

See more shoe design »

Here’s the information sent to us by the designer:

Liz Ciokajlo is a footwear designer based in London with a background in a combination of product, furniture design and fashion accessories.

This year she finished her Masters in Fashion Footwear at London College of Fashion being the recipient of the Jimmy Choo Dato Cordwainers Award and was one of ten accessory designers in the world chosen to be a finalist in the International Talent Support Competition 2013.

The collection, called Natural Selection, aimed to objectify the shoe. The project started with the examination of how 3D printing could alter footwear architecture and identify new design constructions.

Observations were made that whilst the potential of this new technology offers many benefits the materiality was limited. There seems to be a lack of natural materials used. This lead to the critical theory 3D print is the right process but maybe using the wrong materials?

So practical research was made into the use of non-wovens as a potential material arrangement which could be developed by specialists to drive the materials used in 3D print.

A collection of varied natural non-woven materials were selected and applied to a methodology in a masters educational context. By concentrating the fibres and adding binders, the properties and characteristics could change, producing both soft and hard material over one continuous surface.

Innovative materials used in the product and furniture industries were “borrowed” and applied to fashion footwear raising further challenges as to what materials are acceptable, in a trend lead fashion context. The design form was the element unifying the collection.

As the project progressed it became evident, synthetic biology will converge with 3D print to offer solutions to these issues. A designer’s understanding of trends and emotional qualities of materials make them key to drive the new technologies in fashion and science.

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by Liz Ciokajlo appeared first on Dezeen.

Après Kinetic Rain, projet nominé dans la catégorie Design des Fubiz Awards, Art+Com proposoe « The Poetry of Motion ». Cette symphonie est une collaboration avec le compositeur Ólafur Arnalds, mélangeant avec talent images et musiques pour cette performance présentée à la plateforme créative berlinoise MADE.

L’agence thaïlandaise de paysagistes Trop s’approprie la terrasse d’un immeuble de 42 étages au centre de Bangkok. Elle crée un véritable oasis de relaxation avec sa piscine entourée de petites terrasses et de végétation et est encadrée d’un structure lumineuse. Un superbe projet à découvrir en images.

Matthew Nurse, director of Nike Sport Research Lab, takes Dezeen behind the scenes at the laboratory where Nike tests new technologies and introduces us to Hal, a sportswear-testing robot that perspires as he runs.

Nike Sport Research Lab is part of a sprawling campus just outside of Portland, Oregon, where the American sports brand is based.

Nike has developed and invested in a range of different technologies to monitor how athletes move, the pressures exerted on their bodies when they do, and what effects different products have on them.

“We can objectively quantify athletes in motion, the environments they play in and the demands of the sport,” Nurse explains.

“We can quantify and understand Nike’s different product innovations, how they affect athletes in the way they perform, the way they’re protected and the perception they have of those different products.”

Nurse demonstrates how, using a combination of motion-capture cameras and a pressure-sensitive plate in the ground, researchers at the laboratory can analyse a sprinter’s motion and the forces they exert as they come out of the blocks at the start of a race.

“We are able to collect the three-dimensional motion of an athlete and from there calculate the power that they produce and the energy that’s produced or lost in the different joints,” he explains.

“[This provides] an understanding of how an intervention [such as a new pair of running shoes] contributes to their overall performance as they do the different movements.”

Nike uses similar technology to monitor the movement of athletes in other sports, such as how a basketball player jumps, twists and lands when scoring a slam dunk.

Nike Sport Research Lab also features a number of sealed environmental chambers, where athletes’ performances and the performance of the clothes they wear can be tested in different atmospheric conditions.

“Our physiology team looks at understanding the body’s regulatory systems, so what happens inside,” Nurse says. “We use that information to quantify things like thermal temperature, to understand thermal regulation and skin wetness as athletes run and move and perspire.”

One of these environmental chambers is home to Hal, a marching humanoid that Nurse describes as “a copper sweaty mannequin,” which allows Nike to test the permeability and breathability of new sportswear.

“Hal is very sophisticated,” says Nurse. “We can set the environmental chamber to different conditions, whether it’s temperature or humidity, and as he moves he actually perspires. It allows us to understand how different constructions or different methods of making affect the permeability of the garment, which is ultimately going to affect the comfort of the athlete and also the thermoregulation of that athlete. He’s an invaluable tool for us.”

With products such the Nike+ FuelBand and Nike+ running shoes, which collect data about the wearer’s exercise routines via a mobile phone application, Nike has already started to commercialise some of the basic technology developed at Nike Sports Research Lab. Nurse says that there is more to come.

“The technology is becoming ubiquitous and the ability to capture the information we collect is getting more and more robust,” he says. “The willingness of different groups to spend money on the kind of tools we have is also growing. The tools that we have are going to be more and more available.”

However, Nurse believes that data alone is not necessarily that useful. How you interpret that data is more important, he says.

“As data becomes ubiquitous and it becomes all-encompassing and all-informing, [Nike’s] competitive advantage is the knowledge we have of how we apply that data to build unbelievable product. With that we’re unsurpassed in the world.”

Looking to the future, Nurse believes that individually customisable designs will become a reality, as will “smart” materials that can adapt to different conditions.

“As we move into the future, I think there are two major frontiers,” he says. “One is individualised product or prescriptive product for individuals. Medicine is already starting to head in that direction and I think ultimately we will also.”

He continues: “We build unbelievable product that works for a wide range of people, but as we start to slice that thinner and thinner, to capitalise on making athletes better, our ability to individually prescribe different products for different people is going to get more robust and is also going to get much more important.”

“Secondly, material that adapts to different movements or different environmental conditions is also going to be important.”

Nurse is confident that Nike will be leading the way in developing these products. “I know that the folks in both the footwear and apparel innovation teams are well aware of what is cutting edge and are pushing the boundaries,” he concludes.

See our story about the new Nike Free Hyperfeel running shoe »
Watch our movie about the Nike Flyknit Racer »
See all our stories about Nike »

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a copper sweaty mannequin” appeared first on Dezeen.

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