Bluepanelshoe
A leather-clad shoe prototype, which was the result of a four-year practice-based research into how kinematics and biomechanics of the foot and ankle, in relation to structural engineering, could form the basis of new footwear possibilities.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-108-0000
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Work presented in various locations including Design Museum, London, U.K.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
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- Year of production
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Bluepanelshoe (2015) is part of ten Bhömer’s ongoing research into the limited nature of existing shoe typologies and their gendered implications. The artefact, a leather-clad shoe prototype, was the result of a four-year practice-based research process by the designer-researcher into how kinematics and biomechanics of the foot and ankle, in relation to structural engineering, could form the basis of new footwear possibilities.
Ten Bhömer sought to challenge conventional shoe production, which relies on a regimented component-and-sandwich construction process. This limits new approaches to footwear design and production, a problem amplified by fashion’s focus on re-referencing existing shoe typologies. Instead, ten Bhömer created a new footwear design and production methodology based on kinematics, biomechanics and structural engineering, to suggest new possibilities in footwear structure, manufacturing, thinking, material and aesthetics.
The output originated through ten Bhömer’s Stanley Picker Fellowship at Kingston University (2011–13), for which she researched foot anatomy and kinematics, and the structural parameters, informed by biomechanical factors, required to support a high-heeled foot in motion, in collaboration with the University’s Sports Science department. In 2014, ten Bhömer was invited to contribute to the Design Museum exhibition Life on Foot. She used this opportunity to conduct further research into elements such as foot biomechanics, construction methods and materials, structure and performativity. This research-through-design approach, in which alternative shoe proposals were analysed, offered an additional method for obtaining new knowledge, countering current industry testing methods, which are limited to testing existing shoe types and padding. The result was a singular blue-coloured prototype that exemplifies the opportunities ten Bhömer’s method offers.
The work has been disseminated internationally, including through ten Bhömer’s contribution to the published proceedings of the fourth biennial Research Through Design conference, Method & Critique – Frictions and Shifts in RtD, Science Centre, Delft, NL, 19–22 March 2019.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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