A new construction is located in the center of Nike’s global headquarters in Oregon, and the most sensitive terrain of the 750,000-square-foot LeBron James Innovation Center houses the Nike Sport Research Lab, a suitable location in the minds of those who paint there.
“We’re paralyzed on campus,” says Dr. Matthew Nurse, vice president of Nike’s Nike Sport Research Lab. “By placing us on the fourth floor, you can stand anywhere on campus and point to the fourth floor and say that’s where the athletes are. “
Nike’s first research lab was born more than 40 years ago in Exeter, New Hampshire, but has resided since 1999 in the Mia Hamm building on the Oregon campus. This month’s official move of the lab to the LeBron James Innovation Center, named after the four-time NBA champion and four-time NBA MVP who signed with Nike in 2003, the same year he joined the NBA, and has a lifetime contract with the company, it creates an area five times larger than the old lab and complements 75 Advanced Innovation Team’s studio paintings. employees, adding 25 doctors.
“I think it’s a concept that on a towel in 2013,” Nurse says. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had more room for athletes to move around?As we evolve, we pay attention to the athlete and what they might need. . “
This now includes an 84,000-square-foot space, fully calibrated to capture knowledge, including a full-size NBA basketball court, a 200-meter fatigue track, a 100-meter track with two lanes of athletic surface and a concrete entrance, a one-third regulatory football field with artificial turf, and, outside the building gates, a 500-foot-long 15. 63% susceptible ramp. according to Nike.
With 825 control devices and 4 environmental cameras, controls of all kinds can be carried out, whether athletes or products. The area also connects the largest innovation organization of six hundred workers that includes footwear and apparel designs assisted through more than 80 prototype machines. .
“One of the things this facility opens up is the opportunity to see more varied athletes in more varied sports at the full speed of how they need to compete, exercise and recover,” Nurse said, “in a way never experienced before. “
Having such a giant area with the breadth of technology in development, Nurse says they don’t just track athletes through choreographed movements. “This area allows us to study groups that show up and do five versus five,” he says. They can just play. If you want to practice or recover, everything is there and everything is captured. It’s a new way of getting other people to examine things. “
The lawn opens the sports of football, baseball, golf and cricket, only for beginners. Already, Nike has done yoga and dancers on the basketball court, as well as many basketball players. Multifunctional surfaces allow scientists to capture as many sports and athletes as possible. as they wish.
The volume of the space, the point of technological apparatus and the ability to implement knowledge in each and every component of the space, adding a new educational center, and coming with proprietary systems and updating others, will be offering a “radical change” from where Nike was, according to Nurse.
Strength plates were a must-have as they offered a complete understanding of a person’s connection to the surface. Getting those power plates to the fourth floor was a challenge, but accurate, high-fidelity data provides a foundation for everything from the lot. placed in the joints where the frame produces and bleeds energy, it becomes a hard starting line to understand knowledge and turn it into a solution.
Throughout the process of laboratory studies, Nurse says they face a challenge and strive to identify the solution before moving on to product creation. As they collect data, the holy grail is that it becomes predictive or prescriptive. Data, the team can then check to create better products and create new answers for the athletes. “We can’t start, we have to make a new shoe; we can start converting wounds through running and seeing where it takes us,” Nurse says. Products and result. “
Because of those force plates, Nurse hoped to install the lab on the first floor of the center, but engineers and architects established a way to lift it, allowing for very high ceilings and amazing campus perspectives. Seattle-based Olson Kundig sees a concrete slab embossed under the candover on the fourth floor, where the NSRL is located. This technique has a functional goal in housing the lab’s superior technical equipment, however, the embossed trend is also related to Nike’s history.
With the skill of prototypes and designers sitting next to scientists, this accelerates the iteration process. “This is the fashionable embodiment of Bill Bowerman’s lab,” Nurse says. “We tried using the lab to provide answers that are better measurable or demonstrable. “
Canopy stadiums, shoes and tennis. I have written about design, equipment, architecture and sports for TIME, Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, Wired and
Canopy stadiums, shoes and tennis. I’ve written about design, equipment, architecture and sports for TIME, Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, Wired and more, from seated exclusives to shoes chatting with Kobe Bryant, to multiple fashion discussions with Roger Federer and walking the back aisles. . . unopened stadiums with architects to explore concession menus with chefs. By merging my interest in sports with architecture and design, I can see the sporty aesthetic. Follow me on Twitter on @tdnewcomb.