adidas running lab w/ Field.io, 2019Role: Look Development, 3D DesignAn interactive in-store running installation for adidas in London and Beijing. Runners step onto a treadmill and move through a generative 3D city built from photographs, graphics and typography sourced from their actual surroundings. Every run is unique. The London experience was developed first, with Beijing following as an adaptation of the same system to a new city.
My role focused on look development: creating style frames in Houdini that helped define the visual direction for the project, and later designing the scenes and levels within a custom-built Unity editor.
Early explorations using procedurally generated cities and point clouds. These captured the structure of a city but not the feel of one. The look was too clean and too technical to evoke the experience of actually running through London.The project shifted to real photography as source material: street signs, facades, grit, vernacular type. The things that carry the texture and identity of a place in a way that geometry alone can't.Style frames developing the collage language in Houdini. My focus was on finding how photographic textures, reflections and graphic overlays could interact on deliberately simple geometry (boxes, planes, basic forms) to produce something visually rich without geometric complexity.ML-generated depth maps were used to drive transitions between scenes and to create glitch effects in the visuals. The same technique produced the glitch sculptures visible in the editor, which were used as personal takeaways for runners. 
Building a level in the custom Unity editor. My role extended from the initial look development into this phase, designing the scenes and curating texture pools per object, so the system could randomly assign different photographs each run, making every experience unique while staying visually coherent.The final running experience. The collage language carried almost directly from the Houdini style frames into the real-time Unity build.The installation in situ. London launched first, with Beijing following as an adaptation of the same system to new source material. CREDITS
Executive Creative Director: Marcus Wendt Creative Director: Paul BrennerTechnical Director: Claus HelfenschneiderProducer: Alice Shaughnessy, Stefanie Greimel3D Design: Julien Bauzin, Nico Le Dren, Margot Hofmans, Louise Silfversparre, Anton Bohlin, John Lee SiebertDeveloper: VanTaSound Design: KlingKlangKlongPhotography: Julien Bauzin, Nico Le Dren
