Three Pears

Three Pears: Design For Modern Families

Musical Interactive Wall

 

Moment Factory -- which has plenty of experience producing live installations for clients such as Cirque du Soleil, Disney and Nine Inch Nails -- recently installed its first interactive musical wall in the otherwise stark emergency waiting room of CHU Sainte-Justine, a hospital for mothers and children in Montreal.

A light projector displays a rainbow-coloured musical sheet on the wall and motion sensors are set up to catch the path a user traces with their finger, playing the corresponding notes in sequence and displaying colourful representations of the shapes and sounds they create.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/06/moment-factory-hospital-installation

Modern Kid: The Interior Design Show

Three Pears

Playable Studio

Stokke

Simple Green Baby

Tiptoe Rugs

 Modern Kid: The Interior Design Show

 January 24-27 2013, Toronto

Crazy Forts

Crazy Forts

Dado Cubes

Dado Cubes

discovery toys

Discover Toys

University of Gothenburg

Helga Björg Jónasardóttir is a design student at University of Gothenburg in the Child Culture Design department in Sweden.  Her piece, playbl, was shown in Milan this year in a group show of fellow students.  Playbl, as pictured, is a multifunctional coffee table that fosters the co-existing needs of adults and children at the same time.

The University of Gothenburg offers a masters program in Child Culture Design.  The following excerpt from the university's website details a brief overview of the program:

Imagine a design specialization where the focus is on the perspective of a child: On children’s play, pedagogy, development, culture, health and above all on the tools of play. On the participation and inlfuence of childen and youth on society. Imagine a design specialization that utilizes the great existing bank of knowledge that has been accumulated in Sweden, in such areas as play, health care, education and communication. In the Fall of 2009 this vision became a reality at HDK- School of Design and Crafts, Universtiy of Gothenburg, with the introduction of the Child Culture Design Programme, CCD, a design programme unlike any other.

Some Useful Links, Publications and Resources

International Council of Toy Industries

Canadian Toy Association

List of International Toy Safety Standards

Early Childhood Cognition Lab Ryerson

Material Connexion

Mark Horton

Converting an 8500 sq ft former Gymnasium into a three classroom pre-school for about 100 children, the idea developed of an s-shaped, canted wall which narrows and widens, made of studs and gypsum board.  At the two bulges, where it is widest, the wall is three feet thick at floor level.  Along the wall are openings for children to crawl through, sit in and peek out.  Cantilevered planes jut out to provide spots for sitting or standing.  Add colour and the wall becomes an abstract element for which the children constantly invent new uses. [The Little School is located in San Francisco, California, USA)

Large Vinyl Prototype

interlocking modular vinyl tile; each triangle 7 x 7"

details

Small Vinyl Prototype

interlocking modular vinyl prototype; each triangle 3 x 3"

Modular Tiles

EVA Foam Prototype

scored foam tiles to be made from EVA foam

Magnetic Prototype

muslin covered acrylic tiles [rare earth magnet inserts for connecting], each triangle 7 x 7"

Snoezelen Room

Originally developed in the Netherlands, the “snoezelen” is a therapy for people with autism or developmental disabilities. The Snoezelen Room has been designed in a form that provides one with stimuli to various senses through lighting effects, colour, sounds, music, scents etc… For example, the combination of different materials on a wall may be explored using tactile senses and the floor may be adjusted to stimulate the sense of balance.

*I heard about the Snoezelen Room when I visited Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation center, which is a children’s hospital for children who have had surgeries, or health related concerns that hospitalized them for an extended period of time. The center provides children with an array of resources and programs; the snoezelen room being one of them. I began my process by developing a form that could be found in this type of environment.

fascinating.

tangle toy

time

*these thoughts are not entirely thesis related, but they do speak truth to where my head has been throughout the development of my thesis work

time has always been such a strange idea to me.  we worry about not having enough time to finish tasks and we complain about its vast measures when we're faced with brick walls of boredom.  time was created to be simple; to be a system for determining the sequential relationship between two events.  and yet I so often struggle with understanding its simplicity... most of the time its staring me right in the face.

these past few months have taught me a lot about the importance of investing time in others.  perhaps not always in a form that requires great lengths of physical time, but might just entail initiating short but honest conversation, expressing a genuine smile to the daily stranger I pass every day, or offering a listening ear when I have piles of homework on my mind.  and I can not fail to mention the ways in which others have shown such great kindness...  like a friend who prepares me a brie/pear rye sandwich for no apparent reason, a sick friend who goes out of her way to offer me a listening ear,  and as noted below - the genuine words of a talented housemate...

these hearts of ours were made to love, strung with live wires of compassion and mercy, and yet this flesh and this will is so unwilling to yield. - m.hers

Susan Cutts

Fairy Tale by Susan Cutts [paper dress]

Modular Play Structure

simple aerial view of a child's playroom