Why would a sneaker catch an architect’s eye?

As a new silhouette branching off the XT family, the XT-RIDGE carries Salomon‘s mountain DNA while taking a sharp turn in design. It sets aside the exposed SensiFit™ cage that has long defined the XT line’s visual language, drawing instead on the layered light and shadow of modern architecture. Using semi-translucent TPU, it reworks the idea of a ridgeline with a more restrained hand, translating performance know-how from the mountains into the context of the urban climb.

“Seeing comes before words,” wrote British art critic John Berger in Ways of Seeing, arguing that the way we look at anything is shaped by our own experience, culture and knowledge.

Outdoor culture is increasingly bleeding into city life, and the performance vocabulary of materials, structure and function has found its way into architecture, design and fashion. With the XT-RIDGE, this act of seeing becomes especially interesting. Once the signature exposed framework is pulled back and stripped away, the interplay of visible and hidden structure, along with a clean, restrained geometric profile, gives the shoe an order that recalls a modern building facade. Complex support systems are tucked beneath the surface, while solid and void, open and closed, create layers across different materials. The result gives technical structures built for mountain sport a more contemporary aesthetic expression.

The same shoe means different things to different people. An everyday consumer might first notice its colorway, style and brand. An athlete pays attention to support, grip and performance. For an architect who works with space and structure, a shoe invites another way of seeing: how materials organize a surface, how structure establishes order, and how the moving body fits within that micro-scale system.

Because the XT-RIDGE takes its cues from architectural structure and layered light, Salomon partnered with internationally renowned architect Ma Yansong for an architect’s reading of the shoe. Following his gaze, from mountain experience to structural relationships and architectural aesthetics, we look closer at a shoe that is understated on the outside and considered within.

How a Shoe Becomes Architecture at Its Smallest Scale

To understand how an architect sees a shoe, you first have to move your eye from its overall silhouette to its internal structure.

Ma noted in our conversation that while a shoe is far smaller than a building, both relate directly to the human body. Both need a complete design logic built on form, structure, function and the relationship between inside and outside.

Seen this way, the XT-RIDGE is architecture at its smallest scale. The layered upper interweaves different materials to create a surface with depth. The technical mesh sits between open and closed, mediating breathability, lockdown and visual layering. Supportive overlays then step into the structure, providing stability while tracing the shoe’s geometric outline. Each element serves its own function, yet none stands alone; through layering, covering and connecting, they form a unified whole.

This logic shares common ground with the way architecture handles material and space. A building cannot stand on its skin alone. Its final form depends on structure and support, the less visible but more essential parts. In the same way, the XT-RIDGE folds support, protection and breathability directly into its outer form. When an architect looks at it, what he sees is how different structures beneath the upper work together to form a harmonious whole.

Bringing Landscape Into the City

The dense grid of urban life tends to produce a narrow, limited sensory experience. Steel and concrete build a modern order, but they also quietly compress our imagination. By contrast, the unpolished rocks, rolling mountains and moving water of natural landscapes open up a vast inner world through sheer primal force.

Ma’s architectural practice has long tried to break through this flattening of perception in the city.

He has consistently brought nature into urban settings, creating buildings that breathe. At the newly completed Shenzhen Bay Culture Park, he shaped a massive complex into what reads as a cluster of seaside boulders, set in striking contrast and dialogue with the dense skyline around it. At Quzhou Sports Campus, he turned conventional stadiums into rolling, earth-covered green hills, growing a volcano-like natural cluster out of the city’s dense fabric. These projects carry the expansive imagery of mountains and water into the city, quietly rebuilding the emotional connection between people and nature.

This approach resonates deeply with THE RIDGE STATE, the idea behind the Salomon XT-RIDGE. Here, the ridge goes beyond a single landform in nature and becomes a transitional zone linking mountain trails to the edges of the city.

As a vessel connecting different spaces, the XT-RIDGE carries Salomon’s long memory of the mountains. It translates the balance, support and protection needed on complex terrain into a design language suited to the pace of contemporary city life. Whether the wearer moves across fair-faced concrete, crowded streets or the urban fringe, the shoe still awakens that intuitive dialogue between body and terrain. The boundary between mountain and city dissolves through continuous movement.

Silent Ascent: Arriving, and Still Moving Forward

Over a long enough timeline, whether in Salomon’s enduring mountain heritage or Ma’s own winding creative path, real strength often lies in quietly continuing forward.

That spirit has shaped Salomon’s trajectory from the start. Founded in the French Alps in 1947, the brand began with ski bindings and went on to explore skiing, mountaineering, trail running and other mountain sports, continually turning performance, innovation and its understanding of the mountains into new gear. Today, this forms the foundation of the XT-RIDGE’s “silent ascent.” Climbing here is less about the act of summiting and more a continuous, steady and quiet state of progress: still moving forward after you arrive.

For Ma, this mirrors his own creative mindset. He doesn’t see arrival as a fixed endpoint. Instead, he likens the different stages of his practice to layered mountain ranges, with rises and falls, where the undulating process itself holds immense value.

On the XT-RIDGE, the silent ascent takes the form of steady, sustained movement. The shoe carries Salomon’s accumulated mountain experience, bringing the balance, judgment and endurance developed on difficult terrain into everyday city life. The smooth extension of the ridge becomes a way for the wearer to move through the urban environment: every step changes, yet every step keeps its own pace and rhythm.

So when a shoe carrying this mountain memory lands in an architect’s field of vision as a “micro-building,” what kind of reading does it receive?

Following the ridgeline from the mountains into the city, Hypebeast sat down with Ma Yansong for an in-depth conversation. Starting from the mechanics of a shoe, he talks about the relationship between nature, architecture and the city, and how he keeps moving forward through a long, undulating career on his own silent ascent.

This interview was conducted in Putonghua and has been translated and edited for length and clarity. 

Hypebeast: Some say “the shoe is the smallest scale of architecture.” What do you make of that idea?

Ma Yansong: A shoe is small, really small compared to a building, but both relate to people. Both need a shape and a structure. Architecture is the same in terms of inside and outside. The way its function, structure and space are reflected on the exterior follows a very tight logic.

You wore the XT-RIDGE for today’s shoot. How did it feel, and what stood out to you?

It’s really comfortable, the kind of shoe you don’t want to take off once it’s on. Actually, I’ve recently become interested in the question of how architecture can make people feel comfortable. I used to find function quite challenging. What exactly is the most comfortable state? I once had a theory that spiritual fulfillment might matter more than pure physical comfort. If everything is too comfortable, people can become lazy and lose some room for imagination.

For example, when you face a building, you might think, “Why does it look a bit strange?” But as you try to understand it, you find the design has its own logic. You might not accept it at first glance, but as you keep experiencing and using it, you slowly realize why it was designed that way. I find that feeling, somewhere between unfamiliarity and understanding, really interesting.

So I think the process of understanding the world comes through designing the things around us: a piece of furniture, a pair of shoes, a garment, an architectural space. Every design presents a way of seeing the world. Architecture is a lot like a shoe in that sense. In the end it’s made for people to use, and it has aesthetics, structure and materials. Most of us only judge a material by whether it looks good, without knowing what’s behind it. With a shoe, we don’t really understand which materials are too breathable. With a building, it’s insulation: how a space can be bright, energy-efficient and comfortable all at once is a highly scientific, specialized matter. The feeling it ultimately gives people is a crucial part of design.

If you were to design a shoe for Salomon, what would it look like?

If I designed a shoe, it would probably be quite abstract. Abstract things can feel a little unfamiliar at first, but they also seem to adapt better to different environments. You wear shoes to go to different places, into the mountains and rivers, into nature. How do you fit in with that environment? Function is important, of course, but I’d lean toward something abstract with a futuristic feeling.

What is the relationship between “nature” and “the city” to you?

I think they long for each other. In the city we all yearn for nature, because nature is so rare there. I grew up in old Beijing, where Shichahai, Jingshan and Beihai place nature inside the city. It’s not only mountains and water, but also a certain mood: light, reflections, those beautiful things. Cities need nature, and nature also needs a human touch. Sometimes a traditional landscape painting includes a small bridge or a pavilion, and you see a person in that pavilion admiring the scenery. So when we talk about nature, there has to be a sense of human participation, of how people experience it.

How do you see the relationship between architecture and nature, and how does it affect people?

Cities are still too simple. The way people experience them is too uniform, and they lack enough room for imagination. Natural landforms let you imagine so many things. You see a few rocks and you might think of a universe, a planet, an island. These things can open up a huge inner world.

Many fashion designers have a background in architecture. Where do you see the connection between the two?

I think you can do anything after studying architecture. Some people lean toward rational thinking, method and logic. Others lean toward the emotional, more artistic and free-spirited. Combining the two is architecture. People trained in architecture also understand what kinds of trouble and resistance you’ll run into when taking a dream from imagination to reality. You don’t get scared off by those difficulties. You realize it step by step.

In your daily life, what moment feels most like “moving forward even after you’ve arrived?”

I don’t feel there’s any moment where I have to stop. The overall line is what matters. It’s a bit like layers of mountain ranges. I work on different projects back and forth, and each work has its own rises and falls for me. I’m not after a steady line; I really pursue that undulation. You explore, and you don’t know what’s beyond the line. I value continuity, but that continuity needs a lot of new energy for me to feel excited. It’s not about repeating the same thing. So the line stays fairly unknown and full of movement.

If you placed the XT-RIDGE in a space as a piece of architecture, would you choose the city or nature?

Definitely the city. What I’ve always done is bring nature into the city. Take the stadium project I did in Zhejiang, Quzhou Sports Campus. It looks like a cluster of volcanoes covered in rolling green slopes, a very surreal landscape. Placing nature into a city built on a grid feels completely different. I think we still need to return to nature, to get close to it and experience it. When the human spirit is placed in that kind of environment, it becomes very free, and you can imagine many interesting things.

Architecture demands a long commitment, and buildings exist across long spans of time. How do you think about continuity?

When I talk about being “constant,” I don’t mean repeating the same thing. First of all, I don’t like repetition. I always hope to find something new. At the same time, our work places a lot of weight on criticality: first recognizing what problems exist in reality. Living in a city, which places make you uncomfortable, which buildings or spaces have problems, what do you want to change? Design often starts from that critical point. So each time you have a new goal, something new you want to change. That’s what I’ve always done. I keep changing, but my working method is consistent, because I keep challenging and keep questioning.

Where do you usually draw inspiration for your architecture?

Anything emotional: stories, films, music, literature, anything that resonates with people. I’ve been thinking about this lately. Some mediums move people more easily. Reading a book or watching a film can change a lot of our ideas, but architecture seems slower. When we look at a building, we first ask how functional it is, or we judge whether it looks good. Its emotional connection with people doesn’t seem as obvious as with other mediums.

Architecture brings so many things together. So many film stories and spatial emotions take place within architecture. So I’m also thinking about how architecture can have a closer relationship with people’s emotions and feelings.

Both your work and the Salomon XT-RIDGE try to merge tradition, the future and the present. How can history be properly translated into the future?

We are history. To the people who come after us, we are history. History is also a line, like a river that never stops. As Confucius said of the river, time keeps flowing past. So we should think about how future generations will see us, and also recognize that we, like those before us on this line, are an equal and natural part of it. There’s no need to over-emphasize it. Even without so-called predecessors, we ourselves are history; we’re already part of that line.

Take what I said about old Beijing’s influence on me. What I saw growing up, what I experienced and felt, the culture I was exposed to, all of it shaped me subtly. When you understand or express something, those values are already there invisibly, so there’s no need to deliberately display tradition.

I love the future and have always pursued futuristic things. Sometimes people sense an Eastern quality in my work, while others think it looks nothing like traditional architecture. But I care more about an inner connection than surface form. I’m not consciously trying to create a “future East” or a “future tradition,” but those things may naturally exist in my work. Something truly new might be something neither the East nor the West has seen before, but it always has a source. It can’t just leap out of a stone.