Assa Ashuach is a most interesting man. Born in Israel in 1969, he studied for a BA in product design at the Betzalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. After graduating, he opened a design studio that dealt mainly with design in cooperation with architects.  He moved to London in 2001, where he continued to work on various projects while also completing a MA at the Royal College of Art and Design. Today, his studio focuses on product design, collaboration with architects and self-production of limited edition studio pieces. He also teaches 3D design using digital tools and machinery. He is clearly also a man of many talents. 

A recent activity with which he has been involved has been a collaborative footwear project that he has led. It forms part of a wider European Union-funded research programme called Re-FREAM, in which artists, scientists and designers have worked together with the aim of rethinking manufacturing processes for the whole of the fashion industry, including footwear. His contribution has been to explore new materials and fabrication methods, resulting in what he calls a more sustainable approach and a wearable, user-centred design. A new ‘biometric evolutionary shoe’, the Evolve IM, is the end result.

This shoe uses embedded, 3D-printed sensor technology which is able to collect the biometric data of its wearer. Other technology involved includes thousands of gel particles of different densities, produced by polymer 3D printing solutions specialist Stratasys. These are also able to capture information, in this instance, details of how the shoe works when it is worn. The value of all this according to Assa Ashuach, is that data from each wearer can go directly into the Cloud to help footwear designers and manufacturers make improvements when the time comes to produce new versions of their shoes.

He says that this is essentially what he means when he refers to the footwear as being ‘evolutionary’. He goes on to talk of a new evolutionary approach to design in general, “The basic proposition is that the first generation of a product will learn so as to improve the second generation. Objects have sensors built in and they, the sensors, learn. They study usage over a period of time so that products can improve themselves.”

Optimised by nature

In this scenario, objects such as shoes, will no longer be ‘living in isolation’, as he puts it, but will instead be part of an ecosystem. It is adaptability to change that enables survival, he says, in an acknowledgement to Charles Darwin.

Bamboo apparently learns as it grows and possesses a certain form of bio-intelligence.  It would appear that the same is also true of leather, which he describes as being a fascinating, probably unbeatable material that has been growing on animals for thousands of years and is therefore optimised by nature. Looking at kangaroo leather through a microscope is, he claims, like looking at cashmere.

Working on Evolve IM has also led to Assa Ashuach studying footwear and feet more closely. “It’s not my natural habitat,” he admits. “I worked with Nike for many years, but more in research and innovation.” Something that has fascinated him is the discovery that we cannot just virtualise everything. Looking at lasts also helped him to see the importance of human wisdom and to produce a shoe that is ‘a dialogue between the physical and virtual’. The gel particles provide a good example of this because, as well as providing data to help improve new versions of the shoe, they have an immediate physical role in the here and now as well. They are there to provide cushioning in the shoe and because they have fluidity, they can also provide bespoke cushioning for each foot.

Health concerns

Seeing this work provided Assa Asuach with what he calls ‘a moment of joy’. His first thought had been to create air bubbles, but this proved too difficult due to machine constraints. He then began to think about filling the midsole of the shoe with liquid, but decided this would also be too difficult. “We started to play with the chemistry and found a material that could do what we wanted in gel form. We used it to create this new midsole that reads pressure distribution under your foot.” He has visions of this leading to a new system for podiatrists to use as it would be possible to integrate the Evolve IM or a future shoe using similar technology into a system to alert medical professionals if a vulnerable person’s weight changes or if pressure points on the foot or excess humidity there look likely to become health concerns.

Colourful celebration

For his next innovation, he turned to 3D printing on fabric, designing colour-changing particles with different shapes integrated into the fabric of the shoe’s upper. He created scripts to run through hundreds of different colour combinations randomly, based on ‘certain trigger points’ before choosing the one he liked best. For instance, the white skeleton on the upper, which looks rather like piped icing on a birthday cake, is conductive. “I was trying to celebrate the new technologies we have,” so the sensors are visible and you can even see the gel particles underneath.

The Evolve IM consists of only two parts, a support-free bottom and a flat upper that moves into place and takes shape during an assembly process that Assa Asuach says could be carried out in any location by a small team of people. This ties in with the Re-FREAM project, which has the stated aim of making fashion manufacturing something that can again take place in towns and cities across Europe or anywhere else in the most advanced economies of the world.

Specifically, the wider project has supported research in three European hubs and focused on ideas to support the main objectives. These are Linz, Berlin and Valencia. According to the Re-FREAM team, urban production of fashion using additive manufacturing, electronics and innovative materials can ‘create a new value chain for the fashion industry’.

Prototype shoes are ready to be part of this and, perhaps unsurprisingly, work is also under way in Assa Ashuach’s studio to develop follow-up versions that he will produce in the near future. The studio’s connection to the Linz hub in particular has already borne considerable fruit. This may all sound somewhat far fetched to many people and just how much impact these ideas will have on mainstream footwear production remains to be seen. Having said that, no one can accuse him of being anything other than broad in the scope of his experiments and thoughtful and creative in what he has managed to produce so far. It is also a fact that it has been from the work of visionaries such as Assa Asuach in the past that many important developments we take for granted today have emerged. 

The Evolve IM shoe from Assa Ashuach with gel particles clearly visible in the midsole.
All credits: ASSA ASHUACH

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