'020 | FTW_AMPB
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Lead Designer; Project Duration: 5 months
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“AMPB” is the abbreviation for Amphibians, a species group that can breathe and absorb water through their skin layer. FTW_AMPB is a thought process envisioning the next-gen interactive experience, prototyped in Rhino Grasshopper.
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“AMPB” performs as a metaphor depicting: A footwear-creation process morphing between two extremes. The project goal is to Decelerate, being mindful of time to recontextualize future shoe customization experience; the essence of decelerating upon time transformed into measurable interaction, linking human perception and visual execution of the generated shoes.
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Outcome of FTW_AMPB project presents an algorithm-driven approach, establishing the form-finding framework and exploring new footwear genres. The shown model, as one of the possible outputs from the system, possesses heel protection, ventilation and sturdiness defined by its transformation templates.
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Brooklyn, USA / 2020 fall
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Global Footwear Awards 2020 | Slides | Gold
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[initializing]
What can the next paradigm shift of the shoe customization scene looks like?
[frames]
[two fundamentals]
Fundamental mechanism of FTW_AMPB is informed by two notions: Morphing and 3D Interactive Fabrication.
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Morphing is a visual effect, indicating the seamless transition of one image or shape changing into another in motion pictures or animation; 3D Interactive Fabrication opens the door for virtual human-object interaction research, pushing the boundaries of input selections and gestural movement. The immersive and programmable sense gathered from both sides shed light on the proposition of the project.
[morphing templates]
In this case the project selected “Taiwan blue-and-white slippers” for the starting template. The blue-and-white slippers production project is commission by TWN Ministry of National Defense in 1950s, focusing on Military-Civilian Technology Transfer from combat boots to slippers for everyday use.
“Taiwan blue-and-white slippers”
->
“SPEED 3.0 COYOTE SIDEZIP BOOT”
“SPEED 3.0 COYOTE SIDEZIP BOOT” is chosen as the ending template based on the manufacturing history of the slippers linking with combat boots. Finally the form transition range is formulated by two templates representing two extremes, making the morphing process feasible to control.
[key geometries & Rhino Grasshopper]
The objectives attaining FTW_AMPB animated process include identifying two target silhouettes, reserving key transformation contours and recording the geometries as computational inputs in Rhino Grasshopper.
FTW_AMPB as a form-finding shoe design approach is developed in Rhino Grasshopper, a visual programming language for 3D modeling environment.
[seamless transformation / UI]
Seamless and continuous variations are displayed on the screen by sliding through the control bar.
Designed as a virtual engine to achieve complex form transition, the prototyping system is semi-parametric and the exterior look of the shoe is controlled by the “Number Slider” on the interface.
More precisely, the information from different contexts such as gestural movement, sound or light source, are enabled being mapped and translated into readable data. This is the convergent point where shoe customization and physical computing collide.
Since the form of the shoe is essentially defined by floating numbers input given from the Number Slider, the input can either switch to any type of serial data combining with sensors.
[logo & labels]
[renderings]
It is the form-control ability that differentiate FTW_AMPB from the existing shoe customization service.
Current footwear customization platforms mostly offer narrow options such as color swap or repurposed fabrics, the entire selection process broken into fragments has overly relied on the sense of randomness.
FTW_AMPB bridges visually and emotionally tangible context of customizing shoes via establishing a defined range to generate exterior shapes and creating synaesthetic experience.
