Living, 3D-printed shoes could repair themselves overnight

Walking past Shamees Aden’s exhibit, the object on display looks like a spare bit of rubber that washed up on the beach after a shipping accident. If you turn your head the right way, it almost looks like an insole or maybe a water shoe. The mind-blowing reality is that it’s a self-healing shoe printed to fit your foot from the building blocks of life itself.

London designer and researcher Shamees Aden is developing a concept for running shoes that would be 3D-printed from synthetic biological material and could repair themselves overnight. Shamees Aden‘s Protocells trainer would be 3D-printed to the exact size of the user’s foot from a material that would fit like a second skin. It would react to pressure and movement created when running, puffing up to provide extra cushioning where required.