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2026 Galleries // 2026 Spark: Spring Student // Autonomy Practice

Autonomy Practice

Winner - Bronze

Competition: Spark: Spring Student
Designer: Minyoung Jeong
Design Type:
Company / Organization / School: Samsung Design Membership
Team Members: Minyoung Jeong, Jeseok Poong, Seungmin Ha, Minhee Lee & Yujin Jung

Traditional shoe manufacturing methods rely heavily on chemical adhesives. A shoe is made of many different parts and materials, such as the sole, upper, tongue, lining, and inner structure. These components are permanently bonded together during production. Because of this, shoes are very difficult to take apart after use. Even when only one part is damaged, the entire shoe is often thrown away. This makes recycling almost impossible and turns footwear into a disposable consumer product.

Autonomy Practice begins with this problem of material inseparability. Instead of treating the shoe as one fixed object, the project sees it as a structure made of stacked layers. Each layer is simplified and modularized so that the shoe can be assembled, used, and later separated again. To replace conventional adhesives, the project uses Shape Memory Polymer, or SMP, binders.

SMP has a special material behavior. It stays strong and stable at room temperature, but becomes soft and flexible when heated to 80°C. Using this property, Autonomy Practice creates a process of “heating to assemble, cooling to fix.” When the SMP is heated, it can pass through and connect the different layers of the shoe. When it cools down, it hardens and holds the layers firmly in place. This allows the shoe to function as a stable product in everyday use without permanent glue.

The meaning of this design becomes clear at the moment of disposal. When the shoe reaches the end of its life, the user places it inside the pouch provided with the product. This pouch works both as packaging and as an instruction guide. The user then soaks the shoe in hot water over 80°C, a temperature that can be reached at home. As the SMP becomes flexible again, the shoe naturally separates into individual parts.

Through this process, a shoe that would normally be discarded as general waste can return to clean, recyclable materials. The purity of each material is protected because the layers are not permanently mixed with glue. This makes recycling easier and gives the user a direct role in the circular process.

The SMP binder structure is placed on the lower part of the shoe, where it is not strongly visible. This creates a quiet and refined design language. Instead of showing sustainability through decoration or direct slogans, Autonomy Practice expresses it through structure, material behavior, and user participation.

By changing the shoe from a disposable product into a recoverable system, Autonomy Practice proposes a new cycle for sustainable footwear. It suggests that the future of product design should not only focus on how objects are made and used, but also on how they can be taken apart, recovered, and returned to the material cycle.