Quoï Alexander, Japan
@quoialexander
THIRD : Story of Shoe
The shoe refunctions the Asagutsu, a traditional form that once was an object that separated the wearer with the ground, allowing for greater purity. This function is reversed, proposing a shoe grounded in deep earthly connection rather than separation. Made from collective relationships built in Kunisaki, using shichitoui, local washi, and a bioplastic formed from seaweed and chitosan, and colored using local bamboo charcoal, the shoe emerges from the intertwined systems of land and craft. The shoe becomes a beautiful object, carrying the THIRD methodology and made as a by-product of the restoration of ecosystems and relationships.
Glossary
- THIRD_ Trojan Horse Integrated Regenerative Design. A framework where beauty provides entry, and regeneration forms the structure.
- Function as Participation in Being _ Function understood as relational existence: every thing participates in a wider ecological and cultural network.
- Vestigial Refunctioning _ Giving new ecological or cultural roles to materials, crafts, and gestures that have become dormant.
- Product as By-product _ Objects emerge naturally from ecological restoration rather than from extractive manufacturing.
- Animism _ A worldview where all things, living and nonliving, biotic and abiotic, possess agency and participate in deep shared relationships.
- Systems of Dependency _ Mutual support structures between species, materials, and humans.
- Co-being _ Designing with, not for. Entering ecological processes rather than imposing form.
THIRD is a framework for embedding ecological intelligence within beauty. It proposes that design can act as a Trojan Horse, carrying regenerative systems invisibly inside aesthetic form. The visible layer draws people in; the invisible layer repairs the relationships that sustain life. At its core, THIRD redefines function as animistic participation in being, a wide sense of being that incorporates both biotic and abiotic. Function is no longer limited to performance or efficiency but becomes a way of existing through relationships. A woven shoe, a sheet of paper, or a ritual of making holds within it essential exchanges based on deep relationality. Each act of design becomes an act of co-being.
This thinking evolved through work between Japan and Scotland. In Kunisaki, Japan, collaborations with farmers and craftspeople explore how local materials such as Shichitoui grass, seaweed, and Mitsumata bark can be refunctioned to support biodiversity. These processes reveal how design can serve ecological systems rather than extract from them. In Scotland, time spent at Kilchoan Melfort Estate opened a space for reflection on novelty and evolution: how vestigial elements, traditional techniques, obsolete tools, forgotten gestures, can adapt to serve new ecological roles. Novelty, in this sense, is not invention but transformation into contemporary importance.
THIRD positions design as a living interface between these processes. It asks how ecological functions such as filtering, composting, and pollination might translate into design functions that sustain new systems of dependency. Through this approach, products emerge as by-products of healing, rather than as isolated objects of consumption. The Trojan Horse metaphor describes how these ideas travel through culture. The work enters through beauty and material refinement, accessible to diverse audiences; farmers, ecologists, designers, and consumers. What appears at first as an aesthetic object reveals, over time, the regenerative networks within it. The appeal of the surface allows deeper systems thinking to circulate quietly.
This is not about starting with sustainability which can be restrictive, but instead re-activating the evolutionary intelligence observed and already present in materials and traditions. It treats the designer as part of an ecosystem in motion, responsible for observed primary understanding rather than control. Through iterative collaboration, observation, and adaptation, new forms of making appear that are ancient and emergent.
THIRD functions as both philosophy and methodology. It integrates biological and cultural principles to show how design can evolve alongside living systems.
By refunctioning the vestigial, understanding function as participation in being, and allowing the product to arise as a by-product of regeneration, THIRD creates a shared motivation between those who grow, those who craft, and those who use. It offers a quiet revolution in which beauty becomes a vessel for biodiversity.