Design Anthropology

With the question “Do you want your feet back”, Catherine means that the actual system to design shoes is wrong because it follow the space around the feet and not directly the shape of our feet. This kind of design in long term create some changing in our feet, like generate a less power and strenght in it, but also to our body, generating a decrease of our equilibrium.

2. How does Catherine communicates with the barefoot communities?

Catherine communicate with the barefoot communities in a way tonot to impose her knowledge but, if she is able, she go to the place of communities and try to learn the most she can from them, so she related herself to the indigenous not with an entonocentric attitude.

3. What is the common language?

The common language is to try to realize the footwear not to reach an income but to adempt a needs and also to produce also a service for other people and for the planet, in fact all of them, both indigenous and also Catherine, produce the shoes in a low impact way.

4. How does Future Footwear Foundation combines the oldest knowledge with the newest of technology? What are the similarities between the ancient and modern techniques?

The Future Footwear Foundation combines the oldest knowledge with the newest of technology trying to shift the indigenous technique a knowledge on a more “technological” way, serving for example of the 3d printing or biometric softwares. The Foundation is trying also the most to not lost the ethic of the process and not to lost the attention given by the indigenous to the treatment of the material and not to over produce it, going to adempted the consumerist market.

5. How does the social impact sustainable business model of footwear foundation work on the level of service design and does it benefit local communities? How?

The social impact sustainable business model of footwear foundation work on the level of service design creating a circular economy and base all on to the share economy as well. The foundation in fact to reduce the constant gesture to buy shoes, increasing so the production and the environment problems given by the pollution created by the industries, adopt the modality to not sell the shoes but to give them for rent. The users in addition are free give footwear back to them and change with another pair, contemporary the foundation does not to throw it away, but she undertakes to repair or replace the damaged parts and put them back on the market. At the same time, she undertakes to give back material to the communities of indigenous people, who can thus continue to cultivate their customs and traditions, as well as to pass on their traditions.

6. Read one of the texts below and extract 2 quotes that inspire you or give you new insights, why?

After two weeks I realize that the ground, the reindeer boots, and an appropriate way of walking are all part and parcel of the same thing.

In the hylomorphism theory founded by Aristotele, production and design always include the reconciliation of the form to the matter. Throughout the centuries, that symbiosis was lost in our Western society. Form was progressively considered as something imposed by someone with a space image in mind. The consequence is that matter became a thing that something was imposed upon, and therefore remains passive and inert. The design as an idea is an immaterial form imposed upon matter.

We lost the relationship between design, making things and the environment.
Production is then seen as a growth process. The design or making comes first, they are interwoven as a double result of the same process.

The combination of bioinspiration, smart materials and knowledge of local cultures inspired new design, but no science, no local population has “the” key to the perfect future design model.

Design anthropology is not just a description of products but tries to explain the relations and “growing things”.