The sportswear and footwear manufacturer Nike has a team specialized in creating products based on its own design philosophy, which they have called ISPA (an acronym for the English terms Improvise, Scavenge, Protect and Adapt), translating: improvise, explore, protect and adapt
The team is tasked with creating new products that innovate along the lines of what already exists on the market. As the team's designer, Darryl Matthews, says, "We basically instagram database explore technologies and ideas that already exist and adapt them to our category," he says on the company's own website.
Modular tennis shoes, designed for recycling
The team’s latest production is a sneaker model that can be recycled and turned into new pairs of shoes. Capitalizing on the idea of disassembly, which is the ability to easily take apart a product to recycle its contents, the ISPA team designed the Nike ISPA Link , a pair of sneakers with three interconnected modules—fused together without glue—that can be taken apart for recycling.
To test the quality of the product, 40 athletes wore the shoes for 200 hours. According to the company, the results were positive: the shoes are comfortable and allow good air circulation.
Laces facilitate production
Because of the simplicity of the system, made up of modules interconnected by pins, a pair of Links takes eight minutes to assemble, much less than a traditional pair of sneakers. This is because the pieces can be easily connected and do not involve the lengthy process of gluing the upper to the midsole.
“Our hope is that these ideas and aesthetics become normalized, accelerating our ability to imagine how footwear will continue to evolve in the future,” Matthews said.
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