For Marc Su, Air Max has never been something that existed only on a shelf. His relationship with Nike’s most recognisable footwear franchise began when he was just 17 years old, long before he became an independent designer in Beijing and long before AIR WORKS existed.
As a teenager, Su filled his school notebooks with sneaker sketches while preparing for a future in traditional fine art. When Nike On Air 1.0 came around, he was so determined to enter the competition that he even pretended to be ill so he could take part. The experience changed the direction of his life. What had been an interest in drawing sneakers became a much more serious ambition to pursue product design.
Years later, that connection has come full circle with AIR MAX LINK, Su’s new Air Max silhouette developed through Nike’s AIR WORKS programme. He unveiled the design on September 24 at Mikkeller in Beijing.
AIR WORKS brought together individual designers from Beijing, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo, pairing them with Nike mentors and Zellerfeld to explore what a 3D-printed Air Max could become when designers from different creative backgrounds are given space to reinterpret it. Each designer developed a distinct expression of Air Max, with limited-run friends and family versions being introduced within their respective communities on the road towards Air Max Day 2027.
From Fine Art to Product Design
Su’s approach to design came from several directions at once.
He grew up in a traditional Beijing arts family, with a photographer father and a mother working in publishing, but his influence has never stopped at conventional art and design. Cycling, underground music, bars, nightlife and the creative people he has met throughout his life all shaped the way he thinks.
His years studying in the UK also became important to that development. There, Su became increasingly interested in experimental design and 3D printing, particularly in the possibility of using new technologies to make creative expression more accessible.
Today, he describes his practice as “translating cultural context into material-driven design, exploring the future where craftsmanship, emotion and culture intertwine.”
For AIR MAX LINK Su looked backwards. Instead of taking a futuristic approach, he began with an ancient Chinese construction method and asked how its underlying logic could be translated into a contemporary sneaker.
The Ancient Logic Behind AIR MAX LINK
At the centre of AIR MAX LINK is Sunmao, China’s traditional mortise-and-tenon construction technique.
The principle is based on connecting pieces through precisely designed joints rather than relying solely on conventional fasteners. Different components lock together through carefully considered shapes, creating structures that can be strong, functional and adaptable.
Su took that logic and translated it into the language of the 3D-printed Air Max.
Across AIR MAX LINK, he integrated multiple expandable connection points known as “Link Nails”, inspired by Sunmeo. These elements allow additional components to be attached to the sneaker, creating the possibility for users to alter and customise the design.
Su describes the AIR MAX LINK as “an open platform built for all the creators”, using 3D printing to give sneaker enthusiasts the possibility to move from consumers to creators and shape their own vision of Air Max.
The Air Max 90 Still Runs Through It
Despite it futuristic approach, AIR MAX LINK does not abandon Air Max history.
Su specifically looked to the Air Max 90, reinterpreting its iconic lines art part of the new silhouette. That connection is important because the Air Max 90 carries its own cultural history, particularly within Beijing’s sneaker and street culture.
Su sees the Air Max 90 as connected to the golden era of Beijing street culture in the 1990s, using those familiar lines as a bridge between the city’s past and the future he wants AIR MAX LINK to represent.
Beijing Is More Than a Location
The relationship with Beijing is central to this project.
Nike’s AIR WORKS programme deliberately connects each designer with a specific city and community, allowing the resulting Air Max designs the places and cultures around them. Nike describes the programme as a way of bringing outside perspectives into Air Max while building on four decades of Air innovation.
For Su, Beijing is more than the city he lives and works. It is the cultural context for his entire design. Its traditional craftsmanship informs the construction. Its 1990s street culture informs the viusal language. Its contemporary creative communities form part of the personal environment from which Su draws inspiration.
AIR WORKS Programme
The teenager who once filled up entire notebooks with sneaker drawings eventually entered Nike On Air 1.0 and discovered that product design could become a career. Years later, he is working with Nike on an experimental Air Max project that gives him the freedom to question how footwear itself can be designed and used. The technology may have changed since the very first sketches, but Marc’s ambition has not.
Nike’s AIR WORKS programme is following a rolling schedule of designer reveals, with Marc Su representing Beijing in September before the remaining designers continue the programme into 2027. For Su, that chapter started in his own city.
On September 24, AIR MAX LINK arrived at Mikkeller in Beijing, bringing together the Air Max heritage that first inspired him, the traditional craftmanship that informs the new design and the 3D-printing technology that allows bim to imagine what comes next.
From Sneaker Sketches to the Future of Air Max: Marc Su Builds AIR MAX LINK In Beijing
