3D-printed outsole helps spread seeds on runs

With the aim of promoting biodiversity in urban areas, a product designer has created a 3D-printed outsole inspired by Velcro and bison hooves that lets runners pick up and spread wild seeds while racking up kilometres.

The outsole, a chunky synthetic slip-on covered in hundreds of flexible, soft hooks, is the creation of Kiki Grammatopolous, who created the project—which she calls Rewild the Run—as a graduate student at Central Sainte Martins in London.

“I took the idea of Velcro, which is also a form of biomimicry (technology that is modelled on biological processes) and I blew it up into kind of a 3D texture around the outsole,” Grammatopoulos told Reuters. “The idea is that it would pick up and disperse seeds like an animal would, for example, like a bison.”

The bison, said Grammatopoulos, is considered a “keystone species,” an organism that plays an important role in maintaining the health of its own ecosystem. In addition to spreading wild seeds that attach to its fur, the bison’s unique hoof shape allows the animal to successfully plant seeds just by stepping on them.

To more effectively aid the process of dispersing and seeding native vegetation, known as “rewilding,” Grammatopolous designed the sole of her creation in the shape of a bison’s hoof.

“When it comes to rewilding in the wild, a keystone species such as the bison would disperse seeds through their fur and their hooves,” she said. “It’s not practical at the moment to bring bison and wolves into an urban environment to rewild, so I was looking at how runners and run groups could be seen and used as herds to kind of replicate the keystone species in rewilding.”

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On her Rewild the Run website, Grammatopoulos writes that urban development has “contributed to the extensive fragmentation and reduction of natural habitats. Urbanization has a range of adverse effects on ecosystem functioning, including the disruption of plant dispersal processes across the landscape.” She adds that the city, being a manmade construct, requires “intuitive thinking to integrate natural spaces within it.”

Grammatopoulos says she is considering the next steps in the Rewild the Run outsole’s evolution. The outsoles, which are not available commercially, are still in the concept stage and the project remains in development. Grammatopoulos adds she hopes to consult with rewilding experts and is interested in exploring more advanced production technologies.