Crunch Zone: Helmet Design — Matt Spanarkel

Crunch Zone: Helmet Design

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Spring 2016

Representation & Analysis II

Parsons School of Design

New York, NY

This project’s objective was to utilize different material studies to create a helmet form. The aim of this specific helmet was to continue to keep the main function of a helmet a priority, namely saftey of the wearer, but to approach the concept of helmet form in a different fashion. The original logic was to create a “crunch zone” so that the helmet takes most of the force if the wearer happens to fall and hit their head. The idea was developed to be similar in fashion to how modern cars today are designed to crunch to take most of the force in the case of an accident, The final helmet design is derived from revealing geometry form iterations that were utilized on different levels of failure points under pressure to create a series of different size horns with engineered failure moments.