Ventete aH-1 swaps helmet foam for air, folds to 3.5 cm — Red Dot Luminary 2024

Bicycle helmets have been built from expanded polystyrene foam for about fifty years. They protect well but are bulky, hot to wear, and awkward to carry — a key reason commuters skip them. Ventete set out to make a helmet people would actually bring along.

Replace the foam shell of a cycle helmet with an inflatable pneumatic chamber structure, so it protects like foam in use yet folds to under 3.5 cm when deflated.

The aH-1 uses a pneumatic structural system that a compact USB-C pump inflates in about 30 seconds; unscrewing the valve and compressing the helmet lets it fold to less than 3.5 cm. A RHEON Labs non-Newtonian superpolymer liner stiffens on impact for rotational protection, and the open chamber design circulates air for cooling comparable to riding bare-headed.

The concept won the Red Dot: Luminary 2024, the highest distinction in the Red Dot Award: Design Concept, praised as the first significant departure from conventional helmet materials in fifty years, and the aH-1 went on to market as a certified product.

For fifty years the bicycle helmet meant expanded polystyrene foam: safe, but bulky, hot, and annoying to carry. Ventete Limited spent a decade developing the aH-1, an inflatable, micro-collapsible helmet that replaces foam with air, and in 2024 it received the Red Dot: Luminary, the highest award in the Red Dot Award: Design Concept.

The helmet is built on a pneumatic structural system. A small USB-C pump inflates it in roughly 30 seconds; pressing the valve while compressing the helmet releases the air, letting it fold to under 3.5 cm thick — smaller than many laptops. The chamber design sits lightly on the head and circulates air, giving a cooling effect the designers compare to riding without a helmet at all.

Safety is handled by a liner developed with RHEON Labs from a non-Newtonian superpolymer that stays soft in normal use and stiffens on impact to disperse rotational energy, a key factor in reducing traumatic brain injury. The Red Dot jury called it the first significant divergence from conventional helmet materials in half a century.

The aH-1 moved from concept to a certified, commercially sold product, reframing the helmet from a bulky obligation into a portable, even fashionable, piece of urban mobility gear.

It attacks the real reason people skip helmets — portability and heat — instead of adding features to a foam shell.

Replacing foam with a pneumatic structure is a genuine material innovation, the first in the category in about fifty years.

The RHEON liner shows safety and foldability are not a trade-off: the soft state is for comfort, the stiff state for impact.

Ten years from an origami-like folding idea to a certified product proves design concepts can survive contact with safety standards.

The biggest design wins often come from questioning the one material everyone treats as given — here, foam — rather than restyling the product around it.

After the Luminary, Ventete brought the aH-1 to market as a certified helmet, drew independent lab attention (a 2025 Scientific Reports study examined its air-filled protection), and saw the design shortlisted for the Dezeen Awards 2025.