Play and DIY: furniture for children

After our presentation, a few people mentioned that the Dovetail Table looked like it would work well as children's furniture. In our criteria scoring, it also came out tops.

We are both quite interested in exploring this idea further, as this ties in very well with our original problem statement, i.e. because of the influx of cheap imported items into NZ, the need for DIY is gradually diminishing and there is a need for a product that encourages DIY activity.

Making furniture for children that encourages hands on three dimensional learning definately fits with this. So we're thinking furniture scale three dimensional puzzles, or pieces that can interlock with pieces of dowel, e.g. two chairs interlock to form a table, and so on. So think large scale tetris, building blocks, interlocking elements, rounded and made suitable for children to interact with.

The individual elements should remain simple, so that the kids can come up with a large range of potential combinations.

We visited the Early Childhood Development Centre and Unitec and took some photographs of the furniture currently being used, as well as chatting with the staff to see what sort of heights the existing furniture is, as well as which items the kids enjoy using. Table height is 500mm, and these are used for both standing and seated work.

Items that were popular were those that the kids could physically interact with, i.e. move/drag around, roIl over, take apart and re-assemble etc. This means the components should be reasonably lightweight, and have grips, handles etc. that small hands can get around.

So, what we're trying to achieve is a clever, interlocking 3D set of modular furniture that is both functional and playful.