We hit a home run with the testing because we actually have new testing protocols that resulted from the development of this shoe.” Mechanical testing of the UA Architech. “And you know, that’s great! Failure often leads you to find that next pinnacle product or develop that next breakthrough idea. “As part of that two-year development, we discovered failure,” he says. According to Guyan, UA went through several hundred thousand testing cycles to see if anything or anyone could break the shoe. More than 80 athletes spent in excess of 120 hours in a gym, beating up the shoes. In the two-plus years that UA spent developing the UA Architech, a significant part of that time went into testing-both mechanical and human. First, is it mechanically viable for cushioning? Second, what’s the overall design look of it? And third, how does it perform after you integrate it into a piece of footwear? If we drop something on it or if we compress it, how fast will this structure rebound? From there, we made a lot of different designs, and we did preliminary tests to flesh out those end results.” “There were a few challenges that we needed to solve. “We went through numbers and numbers of lattice designs to lock in on the right one,” Guyan says. We were able to do multiple iterations of the same design or multiple designs within a configuration bucket.”įrom concept design (created in part with Autodesk Fusion 360) to production, the team churned out many iterations. So we were able to try out numerous patterns and numerous spacings of the structures to allow us to test and validate.
“And that’s coming from a single cell to the patterning of those cells.
“The Autodesk Within software allowed us to create these very specialized lattice structures,” Guyan says. It will also enable design teams to create lightweight structures and reduce weight in parts. Guyan, an early adopter of generative design, believes that, going forward, the technology will help develop new footwear technologies that are more tailored to the athlete. Generative design uses an algorithm to enable designers and engineers to explore myriad design possibilities generated by the computer, helping them arrive at the final product quicker and often with unconventional geometry. One factor that makes this shoe stand out is the UA team’s use of generative design software. Liking it, indeed: UA produced a limited run of 96 UA Architech pairs, priced at $299, which sold out quickly. “We’ve created a compelling performance training shoe that actually solves problems, and athletes and consumers are really liking it.” “The unique thing with the Architech is that we allowed two interlaced structures within each other,” Guyan says. The goal for UA-an innovator in performance footwear, apparel, and equipment-was to create one shoe that was flexible yet stable, with cushioning and support for all types of training. Guyan and his team set out to answer that question for athletes training with multiple exercises: For lifting, they need a heavier shoe, and for running and other activities, they need a lighter shoe. So the concept was built around the question, ‘How could we play with a specific structure to build out a unique, custom cushioning platform for footwear?’” Courtesy Under Armour That was an area of focus because a tree is holding a lot of weight, and all of its roots provide the structure. “The biggest inspiration, however, was tree roots: Some roots are receded into the ground, and then you see them growing upward. “The Architech was inspired by manmade objects, architecture, and natural organic shapes,” Guyan says. While hiking one Sunday afternoon, Alan Guyan-director, design and manufacturing innovation, at Baltimore-based Under Armour (UA)-happened upon the inspiration for the design of the 3D-printed shoes. These structures were the inspiration for Under Armour’s recently released UA Architech: the first performance training shoe to use a 3D-printed lattice midsole. It started with a seed of an idea-actually, it was a tree root and architecture that sparked the creative process-and the need to solve a problem.