A pair of students has found an efficient and affordable way to make a pair of shoes.
Haratio Yuxin Han and Kevin Crowley have created a new footwear concept called Unifold. Members of the Pratt Institute, Han and Crowley have created a show made from one piece of recyclable material that requires no glue or adhesive to construct – just folding.
More than 300m people in developing nations are without shoes, but Unifold could help bring footware to these people.
Made from ethylene vinyl acetate, a foam rubber material, Unifold removed construction procedures from footwear production and therefore dramatically lowers costs. No molding, lacing, sewing or gluing needed.
"Unifold is an experimental project with Professor Crowley that explores ways to construct footwear with a one-piece die cut patter. Made of EVA material, this design is easily recyclable and could be built without a last," said Han.
The manufacturing process is so simple, the pattern for the shoe could be downloaded and printed out onto the material. All that is needed is to cut and fold the sheet of foam rubber following the design.
Unifold is still in the preliminary stages, but hopefully they will soon be available on the market as an effective solution to distributing shoes to the masses.
There are currently two patterns of Unifold shoes available: the Asian style slipper, which has been compared to the popular Tom’s canvas shoes, and a cross-over sandal.
Han is proving to be very innovative in the footwear department. He has invented Origami Knight boots that ease the stress points on the foot by placing flexible origami-inspired section into the plastic boots to allow for greater maneuverability.
