This is an academic project done at Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, Netherlands along with one of my batch mate. This project was done to understand the process of shoe making. Shoes can be ultra utilitarian or so fashionable that it hurts to wear them. In the future waste is going to be a vital resource for us. We started our journey exploring different waste.
Material Browsing
As waste was the theme which we chose for the project, we roamed around the streets of Rotterdam looking for what kind of waste is generated on daily basis. We then also visited thrift stores. During this material hunt we came across this store called "SCRAP" where we found a variety of discarded waste in bulk.
Conceptualisation
Based on these materials some basic visualisation was done to understand how the material will be used in the final shoe. depending on our liking's, we also sketched a few side profiles of shoes to help us visualise better how the materials will be used.
The first concept is the butt shoe, it allows you to dump your cigarette butts in the sole of your shoe and also helps you track the number of cigarettes you have been smoking. The second shoe is a combination of two most iconic things from Rotterdam, clogs and weed. Here, the shoe will be a combination of both. The Weed Clog.
In the third shoe the upper is made of broken CDs and tempered glass. The back layer of tempered glass doesn't let the glass fall apart even after being damaged hence making it flexible.
Fabrication
The final shoe was decided to be made of broken keyboards and arduinos. First the keyboard was disassembled and later analysed on the basis of which part of the keyboard will be used for which of the shoe component. The keys of the keyboard were stuck to a preexisting sole, and then was vacuum formed. This was used as a mold to cast the sole of the shoe, where the broken arduinos and micro processors were put and resin was poured over. The upper was made using the Key Matrix
The final outcome.
Thank You.
