Client: Nike
Location: Beijing, China / Harlem, New York
Design: f=f
Production: FATHOM
Nike partnered with Footlocker to create a shopping experience tailored to basketball. The store was a split between the Air Jordan brand the Nike basketball brands. The store layout was like basketball court with one side Air Jordan and the other, Nike basketball.
For the first store opening in Beijing, Nike approached us to create a sculpture for the "half-court" location at the center of the store to resemble the "jump ball" (the play at the beginning of a basketball game to determine which team gets the ball first). We created two full size sculptures, one resembling Michael Jordan and the other, another basketball player.
The pattern of the sculptures too many iterations. We explored ideas such as a basketball net and a herringbone pattern used on their basketball shoes. In the end, Nike preferred to use the same hexagonal pattern as our previous sculptures for Global Football.
The sculptures were printed in SLS Nylon 12 in 15 pieces each. The printed parts had hidden mounting features for screws and rigging. This was especially important because they would be at ground level and could be seen very close.
The rigging design was especially unique because the sculptures were hung from cables that were not vertical, but came to a single point at the ground. Because of this, we had to use physics simulation to determine how the sculptures would hang depending on their mounting locations to make sure they would stay in the correct location.
When Nike opened another House of Hoops store in Harlem, they approached us to create a wall display showcasing all of the Air Jordan shoes to date, as well as a selection of Nike basketball shoes. They were meant to appear to be cast in concrete, maintaining the outdoor basketball court aesthetic of the store.
We acquired 3D scans of all the shoes and 3D printed full scale replicas with mounting features to attach to cast concrete frames with de-bossed lettering for the name of each shoe.
This was a feature used in both the Beijing and Harlem locations.
