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THOUGHT TO DOT OR DOT TO THOUGHT?
This project is an exploration of the fluid terrain of 'imagination', 'play' and
'children' to design for play for children. It has been informed through philosophical and phenomenological perspectives. How can we explore the practices and qualities of imagination (thought to images to form; in no specific order) and play to draw out the relation between them and the play modalities it could generate? It positions children as the faculty involved
with comprehending, experiencing and manifesting imagination in their micro and meta reality through play and while playing.
One of the enchanting qualities of play, in its being and its transitional existence allows mixing of space and time, where tangible and intangible merges into one, or appears to be, when looked backwards in that moment. Play seems to weave together a fabric of space and time; a bridge between
the very immediate and the supremely vast.
Design for Play, Research, Design for Children, Prototyping
Play Experience - Toy Design, Philosophy of Play
Collaboration ~ Risskov Skole, Aarhus (Design School Kolding)
PROCESS
The process has been designed by combining two approaches ~
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Design Tools (Experimental Design Research + Theory as a Tool)
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Child Centred Design for Play
This combination was chosen to be able to study imagination, play
and children as a design researcher, as a playful participant and
as a play & visual designer.
Children are viewed as individual beings in relation to external factors, components that sit in the periphery and the environment around it.
HOW DOES PLAY TRANSITION FROM THOUGHTS TO IMAGES/FORM?
HOW DO CHILDREN EXERCISE IMAGINATION THROUGH PLAY?
HOW DO PLAYFUL EXPRESSIONS AND IMAGINATION INTERACT/OVERLAP?
HOW DO CHILDREN PLAY WITH AND EXPLORE KNOWN-UNKNOWN
IMAGES AND FORMS?
DESIGN EXPERIMENTS
A set of three playful activities in which children were given materials/tools to play with and create analogous images & forms. The 'player', the 'play experience', the 'play object' and the 'outcome' were observed to explore construction play and playful practices of imagination through expressive interaction.
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Playing to imagine with an analog projector
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Playing to imagine with materials / objects / form
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Playing to imagine with inks
AN INNATE SENSE OF FREEDOM APPEARS TO LINGER AROUND THE EXPERIENCE OF PLAYING TO IMAGINE AND IMAGINING TO PLAY.
BUILDING / CONSTRUCTION TOY
The outcomes of the design experiments highlighted that in any form of building, constructing and putting things together; the idea of a dot turning
to a line, line to a shape, shape to a form and forms to the world around us holds the player captive.
What if a building toy was made to be unending?
Can a building toy be made to have multidimensional growth/flow?
Can the toy keep reinventing itself?
Can it connect in many ways, instead of only x, y and z axis?
How many permutations - combinations can it have?
Prototypes and Explorations (Shapes / Forms)
INTO
INTO is a multi-combinational, building toy enabling free and imaginative play.
It is for children 4 and above. It can be played individually or in groups.
It encourages multiple - varied outcomes without a correct or a desired end.
It is not time bound.
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