by Karen Hewitt | Feb 21, 2018 | Architecture, Art and Design, Block Play, Education, Play, Toy Design
Scrape the plates clean …initial thoughts from a toy designer’s leftovers After closing down Learning Materials Workshop office/studio, ending forty years of toy production, I find myself at home with a studio full of marooned materials, abandoned samples and jilted...
by Karen Hewitt | Nov 3, 2017 | Architecture, Art and Design, Block Play, Education, Play, Toy Design, Toy History
“Her [Ytp Barrada] presentation of Lyautey’s modernization project in the guise of a children’s toy introduces a latent sense of destruction and disorder, and raises questions around the role of aesthetics and style in a colonial context” – The Met I can...
by Karen Hewitt | May 19, 2017 | Uncategorized
I was intrigued by the Green Light Workshop presented at the 2017 Venice Art Biennale. Although the final object is already delineated by elisson’s instructions, the process of working with materials in a group setting has its own form of creativity. “olafur...
by Karen Hewitt | May 3, 2017 | Uncategorized
I thought about the inherent but delightful contradiction of the building toy after reading Edwin Heathcote’s article. Architectural structures are designed to endure but building toys, by definition are meant to be impermanent –they go up, they collapse and they go...
by Karen Hewitt | Feb 21, 2017 | Uncategorized
A few useful things to consider when designing or purchasing toys in the Trump era. toys that encourage children to question. “what would happen if…?” toys that present facts that children can verify.”This block really fell down. I saw...
