It is always extremely exciting to find analogies between fashion and architecture that can inspire us to create more innovative designs.
Take for example these vintage sandals from the Costume Institute collection at The Metropolitan Museum in New York. Designed by David Levin for Saks Fifth Avenue in 1938 (as The Historialist found out, helping the curators at the Costume Institute identifying them) they were the result of a patent submitted by Levin in October 1938 and granted a month later.
Not much is known about Levin, but he was active between the '30s and the '40s and submitted quite a few innovative designs for patents in his times.
For these sandals Levin opted for a wedge, a popular solution during World War II when, due to material shortages in Europe, designers aimed at eliminating the need for a steel shank to support the arch of the shoe. In this case, though, Levin came up with a very inventive solution for the wedge, forming a continuous, curving shape around the back of the heel (the same expedient was reused by United Nude in one of its first signature designs, the lightweight, open-wedge mid heel "Möbius" shoes View this photo).
The more you look at that heel that looks as if it were made by a long leather sole, sinuously folded onto itself, the more you think about something completely different and developed in our times, like the layers of concrete forming the supports for a recent project – the Striatus footbridge.
A project by the Block Research Group (BRG) at ETH Zurich and Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (ZHACODE), in collaboration with incremental3D (in3D), and made possible by Holcim, Striatus is a 16×12-metre arched masonry footbridge composed of 3D-printed concrete blocks assembled without mortar or reinforcement.
3D concrete printing (3DCP), contemporary design, advanced computational design and robotic technologies are combined with traditional techniques of master builders in this footbridge to create an alternative to traditional concrete construction.
The bridge proposes a new language for concrete: the name "Striatus" reflects indeed its structural logic and fabrication process. In this project concrete is printed in layers orthogonal to the main structural forces to create a "striated" compression-only funicular structure that requires no reinforcement.
The shape is the result of limit analysis techniques and equilibrium methods, such as thrust network analysis, originally developed for the structural assessment of historic masonry vaults.
As the construction does not need mortar, its strength comes through geometry rather than from an inefficient accumulation of materials.
The bridge features indeed a reduced amount of materials and deep arches that transfer horizontal loads to the supports in pure compression.
Each block of the structure is made with 500 print layers per block extruded by a multi-degree of freedom (DoF) robot arm manipulator, and the blocks are as hollow and as light as possible, characterised by an infill triangulation that ensures proper support and that is made by a single, continuous print path meeting various criteria (appropriate print speed and turning radii; structurally required material width and thickness, and controlled expression of naturally occurring printing artefacts).
The bridge employs therefore the least amount of material possible while maintaining structural integrity under all loading conditions.
So where is the analogy? In the layered design or rather in the possibility of saving money and material to achieve structure by using a layered design that seems to fold onto itself and that helps achieving balance without producing a solid wedge in the case of the shoe or a block with a solid section in the case of the bridge (Striatus' new floor system uses only 30% of the volume of concrete and just 10% of the amount of steel).
Striatus is also sustainable: the blocks can be dismantled and the bridge disassembled and reassembled at different locations. If the construction is no longer needed, the materials can simply be separated, recycled and repurposed.
Introducing the principles demonstrated by Striatus would disrupt the construction industry, transforming the way we design and construct our built environment.
But could some of the principles behind Striatus be used to create innovative designs in fashion? Try and find the answer to this question by seeing the bridge in person, if you get the chance, it is indeed currently on display at the Giardini della Marinaressa in Venice for the Architecture Biennale (until 21st November 2021).
Image credits for this post
Images 3-14 Copyright and Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects