BEN VAN BERKEL / UNSTUDIO for UNITED NUDE
With the design for UNX2, we wanted to dress the foot in such a way as to make its form partially visible, to highlight the mechanics of the foot and the visual effects that can be created by the shoe in motion.

We were particularly interested in the kinds of images the shoe could create, both when static and when in motion. When the wearer is still, the curve of the foot can be glimpsed within the shoe and the dynamics of movement are suggested by the curving vertical ribbons that envelop it.

However, once the wearer begins to move, shifting levels of transparency are created and the vertical lines create a staccato rhythm reminiscent of early stop-motion photography. The UNX2 shoe creates patterns of movement and produces a dynamic form of image-making through motion. 

It was also our intention to make visible the “process” of design in the final object: the digital strategy that was employed when testing the position of the foot within the shoe. So there is a kind of literal transparency, but also a phenomenological transparency that reveals both the process of design and the processes of movement. The vertical ribbons and the hoof-like shape of the shoe elongate the legs and create an almost animal-like extension.

BEN VAN BERKEL, born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is the Founder and Principal Architect of UNStudio in Amsterdam and Shanghai.
Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

UNStudio is a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects include restructuring the station area of Arnhem, the design for Doha’s Intregrated Metro network in Qatar, the Raffles City mixed-use development in Hangzhou and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. Currently he is Professor Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main and was recently awarded the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor’s Chair at Harvard University Graduate. 

ZAHA HADID for UNITED NUDE
Informed by the flickering light of fire, the Flames shoe is the most recent collaboration between Zaha Hadid and United Nude.
Flame-like bands originate from the point of the heel, rising upwards to gently embrace the foot, while the ergonomically optimized foot bed provides comfort and support.
The sculptural sensibility and experimentation of Hadid’s architectural language and United Nude’s expertise in manufacturing the most innovative designs has embodied the shoe with the essence of fire - delicate and ephemeral, yet compelling and dynamic.
ZAHA HADID, founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004 and is internationally known for her built, theoretical and academic work. Each of her projects builds on over thirty years of exploration and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design. 

Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950, Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving to London in 1972 to attend the Architectural Association (AA) School where she was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. Hadid founded Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979 and completed her first building, the Vitra Fire Station, Germany in 1993.
Hadid taught at the AA School until 1987 and has since held numerous chairs and guest professorships at universities around the world including Columbia, Harvard and Yale. She is currently a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Working with senior office partner, Patrik Schumacher, Hadid’s interest lies in the rigorous interface between architecture, urbanism, landscape and geology as her practice integrates natural topography and human-made systems, leading to innovation with new technologies.

The MAXXI: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games, and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku are built manifestos of Hadid’s quest for complex, fluid space. Previous seminal buildings such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati and the Guangzhou Opera House in China have also been hailed as architecture that transforms our ideas of the future with new spatial concepts and dynamic, visionary forms. 

ROSS LOVEGROVE for UNITED NUDE
The freedom afforded by the unbridled free form sculpting of advanced 3D printing is totally invigorating and emotionally stimulating; a new World of aesthetics that from the inception of the software, our studio has endeavored to be a the forefront of optimizing this potential within the field of Industrial Design for the last 15 years born out of architectural academic process and research into natural phenomenology rather than the self referential stagnating World of design.
We have entered a second renaissance that is like a spaceship moving away from an analogue Earth into a Nebula of extraordinary abstract beauty that will lift our psyche to new limits of speculation and biomimetic understanding.....closer in fact to our true instinctive view of a non linear World.
So, mindful of this moment of divergence I have sought to ground my concept on core female anatomical beauty first scanning the foot to retain the sophisticated surfaces that hard and soft physiognomy can naturally provide.
This is a fundamental principle in all of my work as form and structure is generated from genesis principles that guide and hold the concept true to its objectives.
Remaining sincere to the optimized possibility that advanced software can provide my shoe seeks to benefit from a structured underlying design process that innovates through systematic modeling and remodeling to find a point of convergence between all things considered. 

I have used this project to establish a moment where physical innovation in materials density and layered matrix node structuring, are coalesced to enhance the sensuality of the female form whilst remaining clearly technological....ultimately the shoe has been truncated to extending the perception of verticality and in doing so eliminate weight and mass which for me is a symbol of decadence.

The filaments or hairs have been modeled using particle systems and attraction- repulsion logistics paralleling the bionic geometry of the foot. The complex tridimensional polygon mesh provides what is termed a Watertight Geometry whereby nothing is extraneous either in material volume or functional characteristic.

This modeling convergence benefits from the dynamics of gravity and particle attraction hence the subconscious references to the cosmos and the greater forces of attraction and repulsion.
Ross Lovegrove ROSS LOVEGROVE is a designer and visionary who’s work is considered to be at the very apex of stimulating a profound change in the physicality of our three dimensional world. 

FERNANDO ROMERO for UNITED NUDE
At the intersection of the geometry of nature, the human body, and the cosmos, the design of this shoe finds its beginning—in the geometries calculated through mystifying yet rational natural numeric sequences. It is these radial organic movements that inspire the shoe—grounded in a moment of literal connection between the human body, the earth we live on, and the universe of which we are part.

Organic geometries have been studied by some of the greatest mathematical minds since ancient Greece, and the connection between the human body and these numeric sequences can be seen throughout works of architecture, art, and design. But the human body is one of the most important organic structures and infrastructures, which we often take for granted. Our connection to nature is deeply rooted in the intricate makeup of our systems and our skeleton, empowered by our muscles to allow rotating motions that move our bodies through space.

Man simultaneously has an inherent connection to the cosmos, an environment so large we still cannot fathom its true size. Its limits are still a mystery, yet its workings are visible on all scales in our daily lives. In the cosmos it is the celestial bodies, which rotate around each other in concentric turns, creating energies that we feel even within our core. 

Yet it is the availability of advanced technology today, which make possible a design such as this. Intertwined in this shoe are the old and the new, the organic and the exquisitely man-made, growing together to become simultaneously timeless and forward-looking.

This shoe uses the most cutting-edge 3D printing technology both in design and execution, but the result is a shoe that could have been an object found in nature, a delicate fossil that has been buried on the bottom of the ocean for millennia. Architect and World Economic Forum “Global Leader of Tomorrow” FERNANDO ROMERO (Mexico City, 1971) is one of today’s most relevant international architects with several on going projects throughout the world.He worked with Rem Koolhaas from 1996 to 2000.Upon his return to Mexico, Fernando founded FR-EE / Fernando Romero EnterprisE, with offices in New York and Mexico City.
Fernando seeks to translate the contemporary moment and culture through his architecture, using state of the art materials and technologies, supported by thorough, comprehensive research, and collaboration with other disciplines.

He designed the new building for the Soumaya Museum, a groundbreaking proposal, which has transformed the perception of architecture in Latin America. 

MICHAEL YOUNG for UNITED NUDE
Working on this project has allowed the office a unique opportunity to explore and expand within a rare dimension. As a design office we are often working within strict parameters for client briefings so designing without boundaries on a shoe that is created to push the productions skills of United Nude and 3D Systems is rare.

Combined with our own extensive experience in 3d technology we have created what we consider a refreshing approach to the way a shoe may be can be perceived. The process and material allowed us to create this unique lattice work that builds upwards around a heeled shoe  to create a boot with the tactility of lace work that is in fact both durable and flexible at the same time. Michael Young was born in 1966 in Sunderland, a small industrial city in the North- East of England. He graduated from Kingston University in 1992 and the following year, he founded the Michael Young Studio with the aim of providing exclusive, quality design services across an eclectic range of markets – from interiors to technology. 

Michael Young quickly became one of the UK’s most sought-after young designers and revered retailers and institutions such as the Conran shop and the Pompidou Museum began demanding his work. He became known in the industry as a sophisticated minimalist acclaimed for his elegant, pared-down aesthetic design, which was in direct opposition to the elaborate style dominating London at the time.

After nearly a decade working across the UK and Iceland, Michael was enticed to Asia by his passion for pioneering technology, and in 2006 set up a studio in Hong Kong. Today Michael Young Studio is considered to be one of the most exciting and formidable design companies operating in Asia, responsible for designing award-winning icons for its clients that last a lifetime and are presented in museums globally. Over the past 20 years Michael Young has established himself as one of the leading international figures in his field continuing to push the boundaries of experimental design. The studio specialises in creating modern design through exploring the endless possibilities Asia’s technological ingenuity provides. Propelled by the momentum created through collaboration with Chinese industrialists, the studio captures the strengthening ties between local industry and design, and exemplifies the skills of Asia’s industrial innovation.