Sport Infinity followed a design-driven approach with the consumer placed at the heart of the creation process. Its aim was to create a more streamlined creation process for customizable and recyclable products, exploiting the potential of automated and sustainable product forming processes to eliminate the need for adhesives. The research focused on four main areas: the development of a co-creation user interface, material innovation, product & process innovation, and product design innovation.
The user interface came in the form of a virtual configurator, which was used to create an interactive customization experience, allowing consumers to create their very own personalized shoe with a choice of product designs with varying levels of sustainability and recyclability.
This information is then fed directly into the manufacturing process, producing a shoe solely from a newly developed TPU single material toolbox and using a new kinematic molding process that allows for a highly integrated production of complex forms. This simplified process also reduces waste, the amount of material required to create the product and completely does away with the need for adhesives. At the end of the products’ lifecycle, they can be broken down and remolded into something completely new.