After analysing the construction of chairs, Chang used CAD software to design the range before working with craftsmen to realise the maple wood and metal designs.

“I think footwear is a human support structure,” she says. “Their construction is integral to the design and uses the principles of the slotting system found in furniture and engineering.”

One shoe comprises two halves that slot together on pegs, wedged together using a third piece to support the heel. A wide tan leather strap over the top secures the foot.

The heel of another design is formed from strips of wood that create an angular shape, with the base balanced on one edge.

Holes in this section reduce the weight and are detailed with metal, which runs down the exposed underside of the arch into strips on the heel.

Another model, which scoops upward at the toe, has bronze-lined gaps through the middle and in the bottom of the sole.

Chang's references for the collection included London shoe designer and RCA alumni Chau Har Lee, as well as designs by Dieter Rams and Charles and Ray Eames. Also influenced by furniture, Rem Koolhaas' collection for United Nude includes a shoe with part of an Eames chair for a heel.

Other graduating Royal College of Art students presented headdresses covered in hundreds of colourful bristles and plump pastel silicone garments moulded from knitwear at the institution's annual show last month.

We've published a couple of stories about wooden shoes including chunky pairs that clamp around the wearer's feet and carved trainers for K-Swiss.

Previously we've featured back-to-front stilettos that force the wearer to walk in an unusual way and shoes that undergo physical changes to represent stages in a life cycle.

See more shoe design »
See our coverage of graduate shows 2013 »
See more design by Royal College of Art students »

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Rachel Jui Chi Chang appeared first on Dezeen.

Interior designer Ryutaro Matsuura used the see-through wire panels and a neutral palette to create an environment that puts all the emphasis on the shoes.

"When the differences of surrounding decorative environment are suppressed, the items themselves begin to enhance their presence," he explains.

Shoes are displayed on translucent shelves made from a honeycomb resin sandwich, attached to floor-to-ceiling columns of different circumferences.

Matsuura describes the interior as a "shoe forest", with "the merchandise hovering like fruits on trees".

The design gives equal prominence to each product and allows customers to navigate the displays without overbearing design elements influencing their purchasing decision.

Nendo recently designed a store in New York for Spanish brand Camper with white resin shoes covering the walls and we spoke to Miguel Fluxá, head of Camper, who told us why they use different designers for each of their stores.

See more retail design »

Photography is by Nacasa & Partners Inc.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Stores tend to be composed of wall shelves and display tables. In those cases, the priority levels for the items at the store and the flows of customers would be set by the sellers. And hence the selection behaviours of the customers tend to be controlled.

So that made us create a pleasant space where customers can find the goods they have hoped for without bias. That was the birth of the shoe store studded with the same C-shaped wire mesh fixtures.

The fixtures have translucent loose shelves for shoes that are made of honeycomb sandwich resin panels. The merchandise hovering like fruits on trees shows its presence in the store that can be described as a “shoe forest”. Customers can enjoy meeting the merchandise and feel a sense of exaltation.

When the differences of surrounding decorative environment　are suppressed, the items themselves begin to enhance their presence. Therefore we think that spontaneous perceptions would be educed from
customers. And then, imagination and curiosity of the customers would be getting large.

Those feelings will provide a motivation for customers to approach each item, and they will have an opportunity to find the item that really suits. That is what we are expecting.

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by Ryutaro Matsuura appeared first on Dezeen.

Designers as diverse as Jaime Hayón and Shigeru Ban have designed stores for Camper. "The world today is becoming a little bit boring, everything is becoming the same," says Fluxá. "So we thought it was interesting for the brand, and for the cities, to do different designs from one place to the other."

As a family-owned company, Camper is able to experiment with different design approaches without worrying too much about the commercial impact, he says: "Some concepts work better than others but we don't measure it really."

See all our stories about Camper. Below is a transcript of the interview:

Marcus Fairs: Tell us about yourself.

Miguel Fluxá: My name is Miguel Fluxá. I work at Camper and I'm a member of the fourth generation of the company. My great grandfather founded the business 136 years ago and I'm from Mallorca, where Camper is from and where my family comes from. This week we're in New York, at the store opening on Fifth Avenue that we just did with Nendo.

Marcus Fairs: How did Camper start?

Miguel Fluxá: The story started in 1877 when my great grandfather founded the first shoe factory in Spain, 136 years ago. He had the idea to make good-quality shoes. He was a farmer and he probably didn't speak any English and he probably didn't have any money, but he went abroad, to France and England, and he came back after a couple of years with the machinery to set up a shoe factory.

Then after many years, in 1975 my father joined the family business and created Camper as a brand and he incorporated this heritage of knowing how to make quality shoes with design and comfort. He tried to make well-designed shoes that you can wear every day. This is the basis of the product today.

To that we added some cultural values. We come from Mallorca, from the Mediterranean, there's a slow way of life there. Camper means farmer in Mallorquin, which is the language we speak in Mallorca, and when you mix all these ingredients together, you get Camper. I think the success has probably been trying to make something different, something original with quality.

Marcus Fairs: Camper uses different designers to create different store interiors around the world. Why did you start doing this?

Miguel Fluxá: When we started to open stores outside Spain we thought it was interesting not to repeat them. The world today is becoming a little bit boring, everything is becoming the same. So we thought it was interesting for the brand, and for the cities, to do different designs from one place to the other.  We started to do this many years ago and it's something that has given us a lot of identity and has worked quite well over the years.

We've worked with many people, from Martí Guixé, a Spanish designer, who has a sense of humour and irony, to Mariscal, who's also Spanish, to the Bouroullec Brothers, the Campana Brothers, Alfredo Haberli, some Japanese designers - Nendo and Tokujin Yoshioka, Shigeru Ban who's an architect, because we also work with architects, Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic, a lot of people actually.

Marcus Fairs: Do you do this for cultural or commercial reasons?

Miguel Fluxá: It's more a cultural thing. We're lucky to be a privately-owned company, a family-owned company, so we look at the long term and we try to do things that we like to do. Of course we think it's of benefit to the brand. It's given a lot of identity to the brand, and customers recognise it.

Marcus Fairs: Do you measure the commercial impact of the interiors?

Miguel Fluxá: Some concepts work better than others but we don't measure it really.

Marcus Fairs: Footwear, especially sports footwear, is getting really technological with high-tech materials and embedded technology. Is this a path Camper may follow?

Miguel Fluxá: We are interested. For sure we are interested. The DNA of the brand is more in natural leathers, European leathers, and this is our heritage. We are shoemakers, we're not a sports brand. But it's true there are more and more techniques, more and more materials. For example in the outsoles there is a lot of development in the lightness of the materials, and also in the uppers.

Marcus Fairs: What's your opinion of New York?

Miguel Fluxá: Personally I love New York. I spent six months here when I was young. For me it's probably the capital of the world. A lot of things happen here. A lot of good culture, architecture, museums, food, everything. It's good to come here from time to time especially if you come from an island, which is completely the opposite.

Marcus Fairs: Do Americans appreciate design in the same way Europeans do?

Miguel Fluxá: In America they do have a good tradition of architecture and design. It's true that it was probably more in the forties, fifties and sixties than today. But I think there are people who appreciate design, European design. Our design is more European, more refined and more casual, but there are a lot of people here who appreciate it.

The post "The world today is becoming
a little bit boring" appeared first on Dezeen.

Jean Nouvel's Pure footwear for Ruco Line reduces the concept of a shoe to its purest form, according to the architect.

The boots have chunky rubber soles and calf leather uppers with a stretchy Lycra lining inside.

The name of the design is printed in abbreviated form – NVL PR 13 – on the top of the boot alongside a serial number, making each pair unique.

They come in white, black, fluorescent yellow and fuchsia and are sold in translucent plastic bags.

The footwear is on show at the University of Milan as part of the Interni Hybrid Architecture and Design exhibition, which runs until 21 April, as well as elsewhere across the city, including at Nouvel's huge installation of future office environments at SaloneUfficio.

Other fashion launches in Milan this year include Ron Arad's 3D-printed spectacles and Tom Dixon's collection for Adidas featuring garments that convert into luggage and camping equipment – see all fashion on Dezeen.

See more architecture and design by Jean Nouvel »
See all our coverage of Milan 2013 »
See our Milan 2013 map »

Here's more information from Ruco Line:

Ruco Line previews Pure, the capsule collection designed by Jean Nouvel at the 2013 Milan Furniture Fair.

Ruco Line, a company specialised in the making of high quality designer sneakers, presents Pure, the capsule collection created through the collaboration with the French starchitect Jean Nouvel, dedicated to those who love purity of form. It is the first time that Nouvel explores the world of fashion, transferring his creative vision to an accessory that, beyond the standards of quality, functionality and aesthetics, is a true object of desire. A new perspective for the architect, who goes from the macro to the micro, from the designing of large buildings to that of a shoe, for which Nouvel has always had a passion.

The starting point is the architecture of the shoe, the work of taking away that is characteristic of Nouvel and his search for the ultimate essence of things. The result is a sneaker with a strong identity, a tradition with Ruco Line, for which linearity and essentiality are two cornerstones. The basic concept of the design is the monolith, the search for the elementary that is at the foundation of Jean Nouvel's creative philosophy. The resulting simplicity is only apparent, the fruit of research that aims at the archetype that best expresses the object's nature. The complexity, therefore, is dissembled and is perceived only when the sneaker is put on: the bottom, highlighted by a double band, is light and the purity of form gives the shoe a versatility that makes it right at any time during the day.

This complexity, or as Nouvel defines it, this contradiction between opposites becomes a creative paradigm. It makes reference to many dichotomies: simple/complex, light/heavy, macro/micro, universal/special.

This last contrast is developed through attention to details, to the personalisation created by means of the graphic elements that make each shoe unique. The graphic element that identifies Pure, which is also the result of the work of taking away in which the vowels are eliminated from the nouns, will be imprinted on the shoe upper together with a serial ID of the sneaker, making it unrepeatable. It is a refusal of standardisation and homologation, bringing the individual and their unique, original being back into the fore.

Pure, which Ruco Line is previewing at the Milan Furniture Fair, is made from the finest leather, emphasising even more the sneaker's strong identity, in the neutral, white and black variations and in the bright fluorescent yellow and fuchsia colours.

Pure will be presented in Milan, following an itinerary including the symbolic places of fashion and design, two worlds that influence each other more and more often. The first models in the capsule collection will be shown at the Ruco Line stores on Via della Spiga and Corso di Porta Ticinese; in the concept shop 10CorsoComo; at Antonia Uomo on the second floor of the Excelsior; in the Design Supermarket on the basement floor of la Rinascente and in Spazio Rossana Orlandi; at the event Hybrid Architecture & Design organised by interns at the University of Milan; at the Brera Gallery, as part of the Spazio Umbria project and, lastly, at the iSaloni – Salone Ufficio, within the Project: office for living exhibition created by Jean Nouvel himself in Pav. 24.

The capsule collection will be presented in the display case designed by Jean Nouvel, in which one can see once again those elements of clean forms and linearity that have been the guiding thread of his creative opus. The shoes are inside transparent plastic sacks that are hanging inside clear Plexiglas showcases, underlining the importance of arriving immediately at the ultimate essence of the object, the pureness of the shoe.

The post Pure by Jean Nouvel
for Ruco Line appeared first on Dezeen.

The Nike Free Trainer 5.0 has an upper made of soft intertwined bands over breathable mesh fabric.

When the foot is moving forwards or backwards or at rest, the bands stay flexible, but when pressure is applied from side to side, the bands tighten like a finger trap to provide extra support.

We recently featured another design inspired by the finger trap – a collection of leather handbags with clamping woven handles.

We've featured lots of other Nike technology on Dezeen, including American football boots with 3D-printed studs and the spike pads worn by Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius – see all design by Nike.

Other sportswear we've published include running shoes with cables that tighten on impact and a speedsuit designed to reduce drag – see all sportswear.

Here's some more information from Nike:

Adaptability is key to effective training. Scheduling, weather, location and coaching are constantly changing. Nike is focused on providing one constant – the best shoe for multi-sport training.

Designed as one of the most versatile training shoes, the men’s Nike Free Trainer 5.0 delivers lightweight comfort and supportive lockdown with a distinctive look for training in the gym, field or street.

Athletes must adapt to the ever-changing factors in training and evolving training footwear is no different. Nike designers are committed to constantly improving footwear to allow athletes to perform at their best. The evolved approach to maximising the support and natural motion intuitive to training comes to life in the Nike Free Trainer 5.0.

While the woven upper has an eye-catching aesthetic, the shoe's high-performance aptitude sets it apart. The dynamic fit moves with, adjusts to and supports the foot during the rigours of training.

Designers Laura Parrett and Jeff Rasmussen took inspiration from the Chinese finger trap device. Like the toy, the upper consists of intertwined bands that are soft and pliable. When the foot is at rest or moving forward or backward the bands are flexible and compliant. When pressure is applied with side-to-side movements the bands engage and tighten around the foot for enhanced support.

Three performance benefits distinguish the Nike Free Trainer 5.0:

- Dynamic-fit technology for a glove-like fit
- Natural motion design to deliver a barefoot-like feel with resilient cushioning
- Aggressive rubber nodes on the sole that provide multi-surface traction

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by Nike appeared first on Dezeen.