A discovery deep within the adidas archive had motivated adidas Originals’ VP of global design Nic Galway to revive the Tubular name, as well as the ambitious design ideals that kicked off the project almost three decades earlier.

It was the only model of Radical to ever be made available and was limited to 500 pairs – it seems as though adidas were testing the waters to see how the public would react. The futuristic concept was also known as the X-29 and had four separate air chambers on the sole that could be adjusted using an integrated pump – they even had a digital LCD pressure gauge. The design he came up with was comprised of two densities of moulded EVA, in a tube-like shape that was wrapped around the sole – combining targeted support and cushioning. It was made in a way that wasn’t previously possible, but stood up to the vision that the designers had in the 90s. It wasn’t so much the technical features that got him thinking, but more the concept that the designers had been working with – the prototypes and the thought processes they illustrated.Designers worked on one more prototype, an advanced version of the Tubular 4, but were forced to concede to the fact that the technology they needed to manufacture the shoe didn’t exist yet. In 1990, adidas designers began creating prototypes inspired by car tyres that featured inflatable rubber air bags with valves. It’s up to them to integrate cutting edge know-how into new styles while staying one step ahead of present trends.

The design process had focussed on the overall form of the shoe, with materials chosen to fit the sculpted last and contribute to a dynamic look. Originals released the Adidas Tubular in 1993, however it was deemed too ahead of its time with its futuristic aesthetic and shelved after only two years. It was offered as the lightweight option, without the inbuilt mechanics, but only had two adjustable air bags in the heel and a forefoot that was cushioned with EVA foam. In essence, they were thinking too far ahead, the Tube was the future but the collective mindset was yet to catch up.Material Matters is our weekly tech section, where we take a peek behind the mesh curtain and break down the building blocks of the industry. The mind of a sneaker designer exists in a temporal limbo – creating for the future with constant reference to the past. There’s never been a one-to-one retro but the influence is clear, for example the Tubular 2 has heavily influenced the Tubular 93. In 2013 the market wasn’t oriented around technical silhouettes like it had been in the mid-90s, so Galway decided to strip back the Tubular to its core. From time to time concepts can stray a little too far into the future, resulting in ideas that the world is not yet ready for – such are the perils of the visionary.

They were cobbled together using parts from the Equipment series, with a Torsionbar and some industrial looking connectors. Those first 500 were recieved well, and just a year later the Tubular line launched, utilising all of the tech the Radical prototypes had pioneered. On the bulkier side of things the Tubular 4 had an integrated pump on the side and four separate air chambers, clearly based off the beta version of the previous year. In less than two years, the prototypes evolved into incredibly complex pieces of engineering – then in ’92 adidas took the unusual step of releasing a beta version of the Radical to the public. It wasn’t until the sneaker was reissued in 2014 as the Tubular Runner that the style single-handedly ushered in a new era of sneakers.From its roots as a DIY-style fanzine to today’s global coverage, its pages have documented every colab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last two decades. The second gen Tubular range now makes up a huge portion of the adidas Originals offering, with a wide variety of styles, as well as multiple variations of the tube-shaped EVA sole.