AVIATOR
ORIGAMI FOOTWEAR
Concept Creation | Pattern Making | Paper Folding
Prompt: instead of a cover letter, submit a one-page PDF showing how you are a creator.
Concept: what if an entire shoe could be made from a single sheet of material?
Aviator is a result of literally thinking inside the box. Although folding paper into the form of a shoe isn’t a new concept, creating a fully functional shoe from a single sheet of material is an exciting area for exploration. I was originally inspired by existing origami shoe designs, but they either lacked function—like an upper without a sole—or form—like a modified rectangular box. My process began by wrapping my own foot in large format paper to understand where folds would need to be made and what shapes could result in a full shoe. I then created a new prototype by orienting the flat pattern of specific panels like the sole, heel counter, and tongue on the same page, folding those first, and then pleating the material between them. After several iterations, the folds were resolved into a clean shoe form and scaled up to full size using a simple rectangle of brush back cotton twill. Translating this concept to production could introduce new ways of manufacturing footwear with the potential to decrease labor and material waste. One of the most interesting byproducts of designing a shoe from a single sheet was the resulting foot lock-down and release action, which also introduces a completely new interaction to put on and take off a shoe.
key learnings
New methods of make can introduce new usability ideas—an unexpected result of exploring origami footwear was the new idea of entering a shoe with a clamshell interaction. Exploring other methods of make could lead to more unexplored footwear interactions.
Pleating is very dependent on material type—translating paper pleats to soft cotton was not very successful. To improve pleating, I would try a more rigid textile without any hairy surface texture since the texture makes folding/flattening more challenging.