The Boot Skoot bottom was an exploration combining some of the thinking from an earlier project (Elijah Berle's pro model) which replaced foam underfoot with rubber and mechanical cushioning principles. The designer I worked with (the very talented Adara Dillabaugh) roughed out the broad strokes of the concept and I filled in the blanks using Modo and Rhino/Grasshopper to execute the concept. Below are images of the final shoe for reference.

 

Basic idea:

Design wanted to build off of an earlier concept implemented in the Elijah Berle Pro model where the cushioning was mostly mechanical. The rubber outsole was molded with recesses in the footbed and outsole to work together and deflect enough to provide some cushioning. 

Step one was to build the blank in Modo to get the visual right. A big part of the process was making sure the polygon distribution was even. I had a rough idea of how I was going to be building the grasshopper definition and having a good base surface to work from was going to be important.

Once we confirmed the sole blank, design did a draw over to give me and idea of the distribution of detail. I would use this as a guide for building out the diamond design in grasshopper.

The distribution of the diamond grid was only part of the challenge. The other part was trying to understand how to mate up the underfoot details with the outsole details. I had a few good back and forths with a fellow grasshopper user at the office and built out some quick sketch models to test things out.

Once the logic was built out for the diamond interaction between the outsole and footbed, I needed to go through the process of building some surfaces to start applying these things to.