Born from the courage to disrupt the design DNA of adidas, the Deerupt leads the way as a new silhouette injected with bold colour. Reinventing the structural mesh from the soles of 80s running styles, the design process for the Deerupt pushed the philosophy of archival referencing to new heights. Taking a single idea from their heritage sneakers, Deerupt stretches the grid concept to cover the entire shoe. The result is a collapsible runner that conforms to the wearer with a fit and comfort like never before. The Deerupt is a way to think about what it means to extend the imaginary of possibility. Pushing the boundaries of design and bending the adidas signature, the Three Stripes.
Buildings, patterns, honeycombs, farmlands. Taking inspiration from urban planning, architecture and natural phenomena, the Deerupt reminds us that before any of these existed there was a system, equal parts natural and man-made. The grid. This is what gives the abstract something recognizable with its ability to make the familiar radically different. Understanding that everything is built on a grid makes one aware that anything is possible.
The editorial for the Deerupt embraces this fully with its intention to translate the infinite possibility within the grid.
Formless white backgrounds. Pink, purple and green light combined with smoke and bubbles. Models display strong contact with the viewer, taking on mechanical poses with limbs hanging, outstretched or twisted out of familiar placement. The intermittent presence of fishnet socks mimics the grid as they cling to ankles and shins.
Taking on the grid as a foundation, the images point to the distortions in the everyday and make the familiar radically different. The use of pockets of soft light with stronger hue spots create a mysterious, dreamy moment of déjà vu, again making the past filter through to the present and the new. A glimpse of a minimalist, goth-tinged future. A visual demonstration of disruptiveness through the simplicity of the grid, and undeniably adidas.
adidas Originals have brought out a new lifestyle option – the Deerupt. This completely new silhouette takes archival referencing to a higher level, resulting in a fresh take on grid design.
The Deerupt holds the grid as a central design feature, initially brought to the public eye with 80s running styles such as the New Yorker runner and Marathon Training shoe. Taking inspiration from urban planning, architecture and natural phenomena, the Deerupt sees the grid design covering the entire shoe. The collapsible runner-inspired design features an ultra-lightweight construction with knit uppers covered in stretchable netting. It’s the perfect offering for adi fans seeking a look to the future and minimalist structure that is still undeniably adidas.
The Deerupt silhouette drops worldwide on 22 March 2018.
Born in Luanda in a highly political family, Paula Nascimento had always had a feeling that she would become an architect. She then moved to Lisbon for high school, and later on moved to London to study architecture.
When asked about her views on architecture and urban planning on the continent, Nascimento mentioned that she prefers to speak of contexts she knows intimately rather than attempt to speak for the whole continent. “In Angola for example there is a tendency for thinking about master plans which sometimes have little to do with the local context and with people’s lives; trying to emulate other models. I think that it is important to start working from the bottom and to understand the specifics needs,” Nascimento states.
Nascimento is also an independent curator. However, she does not see a difference between her work as an architect and her work as a curator. Specific foundational concepts guide her curatorial practice, with her interests ranging from issues related to urban life in contemporary African cities, to the complexities of identity in contemporary Africa. “I tend to work with artists experimenting and using video, and photography, and who are interested in new visual languages, as well as archival and post-archival processes,” Nascimento explains.
From Hands to Mind (2016) is an exhibition that Nascimento conceptualized and co-curated with Italian curator, architect and architectural theorist, Stefano Rabolli Pansera. This project, completed with guest curator Aladino Jasse, was commissioned by the Experimenta Design in Lisbon in 2015. It attempted to unravel other approaches to design in the space of Portuguese speaking African countries. Featuring work by Oficina Inhambane (Mozambique), Atelie Rastafá (Sao Tome E Principe), Mr Wilson Antonio (Angola), the exhibition was part of the Design Biennial 2015 in Lisbon and later part of the Milan Triennale. This exhibition touches on one of the points of conversation at the African Mobilities Praia Exchange – unpacking the design, artistic and semantic frameworks that comes with the term “Lusophone” (referring to Portuguese-speaking countries outside of Portugal), and ways to deconstruct this.
Nascimento also started a research network with Pansera called Beyond Entropy Africa. “It operates outside the conventional boundaries of the disciplines and focuses on developing research-based projects in the fields of architecture/urbanism, visual arts and geopolitics.” Beyond Entropy Africa’s work focuses on Luanda and a paradigm for the urban transformations that are happening in the region. This is tackled through transdisciplinary projects from installations, critical texts, and curatorial projects.
In addition to this, Nascimento continues to engage in a well-rounded, multidisciplinary understanding of her practice through the cultural collective she co-founded, Colectivo Pés Descalços. The other members include Januario Jano (Angolan multimedia artist and the main curator of the TED conferences in Luanda); historian and curator Susana Sousa; Ngoi Salucombo (Angolan photographer and writer); Adalberto Cawaia and Cesar da Silveira (designer). With the objective of developing and producing cultural and educational projects, Colectivo Pés Descalços has been a part of theatre productions, book launches and discussions around art and culture, joint curatorial projects, among other projects.
Nascimento’s involvement in academic, architectural and curatorial practices meant that she was a perfect fit for African Mobilities‘ Praia Exchange – a combination of workshops and talks that emphasizes cross-disciplinary engagements. Praia as the site for the Exchange played into how discussions unfolded, with a conversation on mobility from the vantage point of an African island filtering into topics on development, identity and unpacking city textures. The discussion on the deconstruction of the “concept of Lusophony”, as well as Nascimento’s lecture entitled “Dislocated Territories”, enabled the panelists to create bridge between Luanda and Praia.
Reflecting on the significance of African Mobilities as a platform for various African practitioners to meet, Nascimento mentioned that, “From the minute that we were invited to be part of the project, it already opened up a channel of exchange and conversations, it is a project ongoing beyond and main exhibition…It is important that we communicate and interact even more, at every level, especially at the level of production of content or critical thinking.”
Emanuel Admassu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and is a founding partner of the AD-WO design practice based between Brooklyn and Providence together with Jen Wood. With over five years of teaching experience in multiple programs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation as well as at Rhode Island School of Design, Admassu has a resilient commitment to research. His recent body of work examined the constructed identities of urban markets in East Africa. Admassu is involved in the investigation of prospects and difficulties associated with the diasporic condition that is implemented through his research, teaching and design practice. In my interview with Admassu he tells me more about his background, research, as well as his involvement in African Mobilities.
Can you tell me more about your design practice, AD-WO?
We have been working on projects of various scales positioned throughout the world. A lot of it is driven by our discipline’s need to negotiate between radically different sensibilities. We are currently working on several projects in Ethiopia, that requires a lot of traveling and collaboration with local practices, cultures, building techniques and zoning codes. This forces us to develop different ways of communicating and materializing our ideas, and also challenges us to constantly learn from these contexts in order to develop a more ethical practice that works against the legacy of our discipline as an extension of imperialism.
We are interested in understanding architecture as the difference between its content and container. Therefore, for each project we have to carefully define what to absorb from the cultural and physical context and also what to introduce into that context.
You are engaged with investigating the opportunities and problems associated with the diasporic condition through your research, teaching and design practice, have come to any conclusions on the topic thus far?
I moved to the US as a teenager, and have been oscillating back and forth between my identity as an Ethiopian immigrant living in the US and an American citizen visiting Ethiopia. This instability has been highly productive for my research and design practices. I am part of a growing number of African immigrants living elsewhere, while focusing on African issues through their creative production.
This diasporic condition is creating interesting types of artists and designers who are able to consistently question and challenge how the continent is represented. This issue of mobility is not unique to Africans. I teach at a private institution in North America, where the student body is made up of a growing number of international students. Therefore, this idea of designing and thinking from afar is an integral part of my pedagogy. These are students who are being trained in the Western context with hopes of contributing to their places of origin.
Photography by Elad Sarig, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
What kind of conversations are taking place in your region relating to urban planning and architecture?
There are lots of debates about what it means to be a global architect today. We are currently experiencing an intensifying level of volatility, ranging from the wealth disparities in the global south, to the unapologetic bigotry that led to Trump, Brexit, etc. We have to develop strategies to resist and compromise these contemporary forms of tribalism.
Architecture is a civic project that provides platforms for the negotiation of differences. Nevertheless, the expansion of neoliberalism is making it difficult to design genuinely public buildings. Some architects are trying to do this through speculative, self-initiated projects, while others are venturing into the realm of design/build by establishing non-profit organizations. Since we are such a young practice, we have the luxury of experimenting with all of these models.
Do you have any new critiques on it?
My critique is against the tendency for architectural discourse to solely operate from the realm of criticism. The projective aspects of our discipline are being left behind as architects are increasingly seduced with the production of knowledge as the only way to act politically.
There is an honest commitment towards a heightened sense of environmental awareness. Although I am a big fan of these approaches, we are also interested in the more traditional ways of practicing architecture by analyzing and designing new spatial conditions.
I believe the lack of agency that is currently being experienced by architects is forcing them to undermine the power of our discipline: namely our ability to manipulate physical space. It is important to operate simultaneously through design and analysis. We are interested in the production of buildings just as much as we are interested in the production of books, lectures, and exhibitions.
How are these conversations imagining future cities?
We are fundamentally interested in exploring the ways in which architecture can move past the developer paradigm and begin to design new forms of communality. The typological research we are doing with urban markets is driven by an ambition to identify urban formations that resonate across different political, cultural and economic contexts. It is also driven by an interest in exploring different forms of representation. We have to invent new ways of drawing and talking about cities if we really want to capture the dynamism of contemporary cities in Africa.
Exhibition and gallery talk for Material as Social Construct as Material (MaSCaM) exhibition
What kind of schools of thought do you follow in relation to imaging cities?
I think we need to learn from other creative disciplines when it comes to imaging cities. The slowness of our discipline forces us to always play catchup when it comes to means of representation. But that lag also leaves ample time for selective sampling and translation. This is why we have been keen to collaborate with other visual artists.
I am currently working on a project with an art historian, Anita Bateman, called Where is Africa? by and large, it is an extended set of conversations (through interviews and upcoming symposia) with contemporary artists who are actively engaged in representing the continent of Africa both within and outside its geographic boundaries. It has been inspiring to discover how these painters, photographers, curators, and academics are using their respective disciplines to grapple with the uncertainties of the present moment.
Do you feel like having younger voices added to these conversations is having a positive impact and if so please explain?
Absolutely. It’s always interesting to think about generational shifts. I enjoy having conversations with my nephews (they’re both teenagers), just to understand their cultural reference points. They have a radically different relationship with images than I do, because a large chunk of their social life happens online. The growing influence of the digital realm is somewhat disconcerting to a discipline that typically develops drawings, images and text with hopes of eventually resulting in a physical intervention. Regardless, I also think this shift opens up new opportunities to not only engage with the physical object but to also design the ways it is being mediated, disseminated, and experienced in digital space.
How do you feel about being a part of African Mobilities?
It was really refreshing to participate in an international event about African cities that centers African students’ interests and interpretations. It is an intelligent model for cultivating a Pan-African conversation about design and urbanism. It was also rewarding to observe what the students and artists appreciated about the city and the market.
From the outset, it was clear that the project was designed with an awareness of the asymmetries and pitfalls associated with projects that attempt to make Africa knowable to a Western audience. The format, the premise, and the participants of African Mobilities were selected to eschew typical, myopic interpretations and clichés. Workshops followed by a series of lectures on architecture, photography, and painting allowed us to have complex and difficult conversations about disciplinary boundaries and ethical concerns. I am looking forward to the exhibition and publication!
Below is an excerpt from animation by Ezra Wube of an on-going research project by AD–WO.
