Kengo Kuma x ASICS MetaRide AMU 'Woven'
Colorway: White · Style code: 1011A879-100 · Release date: December 20, 2019 · Price: $300 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Kengo Kuma x ASICS Archisite ORU 'White Red' (1201A862-101) · Kuma Kengo x ASICS MetaRide AMU 'Sand Beige Natural' (1011B268-020)
Kengo Kuma's Japan National Stadium opened in Tokyo on December 21, 2019, built for the following summer's Olympic Games and framed in timber certified from all 47 Japanese prefectures. His studio's ASICS collaboration was revealed the same month.
Kuma has spent a career arguing that a building should defer to its setting rather than impose on it, and that material and light are how you do it. He has said he uses natural materials to reach a new kind of transparency, and he works with Japanese craftspeople to keep traditional techniques alive inside contemporary structures. The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture went to him in 2016 for that body of work.
The MetaRide AMU applies the same instincts at a much smaller scale. Its white technical knit is wrapped in woven synthetic strips that run into the draw-cord lacing and the brand's stripes, a structure taken from Japanese bamboo craftwork. Between the FlyteFoam midsole and the rubber outsole sits a layer derived from wood, which is not a material anyone else was putting into a $330 running shoe.