Blabla's collection is designed by florence Wetterwald and knitted by Peruvian artisans. Everything is made from natural fibers of exceptional quality grown in Peru, making the line irresistibly soft and cudley.
Florence's poetic, simple, and vibrant style combined with the ancestral knowledge of the knitters has created products which look contemporary, yet feel like old friends.
Blabla started in 2001, when Susan Pritchett and Florence Wettewald, two long time friends, went to Peru. By chance, they discovered entire villages of expert knitters who had been keeping the tradition alive for generations.
Inspired by their talent and gentleness, they decided to create their own line of knitted products for children. Blabla takes pride in its fair trade ethics and genuine commitments.
The 'Nested Bunk Beds' was a winning entry by architect Y. Tsai of
Tsai Design Studio for the 36sqm Challenge, a design competition
sponsored by Pick 'n Pay Ackerman Foundation. The requirements for the
competition was to design 36sqm of home for 7-8 people, a condition
commonly found in the low cost income housing in South Africa.
Tsai Design Studio’s Nested Bunk Bed was inspired by Matriochka Russian dolls that can unpack itself into several other dolls. Each
bed is fitted with standard single mattress. The length of the beds
increases to allow each bed to be nested under each other, leaving some
storage space on the side of the beds. Sections of the nested bed can
be pulled out to serve a number of purposes, such as a sofa for two, a
grandstand seating, or as five beds, which can be packed away into a
standard bunk bed area. When fully extended, the bed system can sleep
20 children in a tight space of 50m2, as well as providing play space
when the beds are retracted.
Subsequent to winning the design competition, the sponsors initiated a
project whereby 4 sets of the bed system were placed into an Aids
Orphanage in Wellington, near Cape Town, South Africa, for 20 kids,
where a flexible Play / Sleeping area forms the core of the house. The
beds were painted with bright colours to bring about messages of hope
and joy to the Aids affected children.
Shoebox Homes has plans to produce 200 beds this year for other
orphanages in need of assistance, with funding from Pick ‘n Pay
Ackerman Foundation, as well as other corporate and private
sponsorships. The beds will also be available to the public by April,
once the factory is up and running.
The Nested Bunk Beds has been nominated at Design Indaba as The Most Beautiful Object in South Africa Award.
Y Water™ Inc., a Los Angeles-based company, announces the launch of Y Water: a low-calorie, low-sugar, vitamin-infused, flavored beverage packaged in a Y-shaped bottle designed by Yves Béhar.
The organic drink, available in four flavors, is infused with vitamins and minerals chosen to provide a healthful alternative to sugary, non-nutritious choices. It contains no preservatives, artificial coloring, or artificial sweeteners.
After consuming the beverage, children can use Béhar’s modular playful bottle as a toy, turning a normally disposable product into a vehicle for creative play.
For Yves Béhar, the cheerful, three-dimensional Y shape inspired the product name Y Water, and also riffs off the two questions kids most commonly ask: “Why?” and “Why not?” Once empty, the bottle becomes a toy. It can be linked with other bottles through biodegradable rubber “Y Knots”, connectors that help to create spaceships, animals, robots, or whatever else a creative child can imagine.
“We look to this repurposing of the Y Water bottle to not only encourage children to be creative, but to encourage children to think about reuse rather than simply discarding these into the trash,” says Béhar. “We want to create a new paradigm for children’s products that encourages unique new behaviors and a productive afterlife for the product.”
Yves Béhar is the founder of the San Francisco design studio fuseproject. Béhar’s focus is on humanistic design, tapping into the “giving” element of the creative profession, with the goal of creating projects deeply in-tune with the needs of a sustainable future, connected with human emotions and self-expression. Most recently, he and his firm designed the world’s first $100 laptop, the XO, for the organization One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), which is aimed at bringing education and technology to the world’s poorest children.
The 50th birthday of the LEGO brick is in January 2008. Children all over the world have played with LEGO bricks for the past 50 years, and LEGO is still right at the top of many wish lists – just as it always has been.
The LEGO history began in 1932 in Denmark, when Ole Kirk Christansen founded a small factory for wooden toys in the unknown town of Billund in the south of the country. The Company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder.
It has come a long way over the past 70 years - from a small carpenter’s workshop to a modern, global enterprise that is now, in terms of sales, the world’s sixth-largest manufacturer of toys.
The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".
Barely 15 years later Christiansen discovered plastic as the ideal material for toy production, and bought the first injection moulding machine in Denmark. His courage, input and investment paid off: in 1949 he developed the LEGO brick prototype, which continues to excite countless children and adults to this very day. Over the years he perfected the brick, which is still the basis of the entire LEGO game and building system today. Of course there have been small adjustments in shape, colour and design from time to time, but today’s LEGO bricks still fit bricks from 1958.
Production of LEGO bricks with Acrylonitrile Butadine Styrene (ABS) began in 1963. This matt finish plastic is extremely hard, has a scratch and bite-resistant surface, and is ideal for keeping the bricks connected. LEGO labs regularly monitor the high quality of the ABS for the bricks.
LEGO bricks are produced in special plants in Denmark, the Czech Republic and Mexico. The ABS compound is not delivered in a liquid form, but rather as granules, which are heated to 232° C until they melt. Injection moulding machines weighing up to 150 tons then press the hot and “gooey” plastic mass into LEGO brick shapes. The shapes dry and harden and, voilà – you have the famous LEGO brick!
Every bit as edible as the original, this isn't your grandma's gingerbread house. Red Envelope gave the classic holiday treat a mid-century makeover, complete with garage and rock garden. A sure-fire conversation piece.
Luminaire, Design Miami, and Fuseproject are proud to present a charity auction in aid of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). The brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC's mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, OLPC is giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And they also help these countries develop an essential resource-educated, empowered children. Much in the same way that the XO laptop invites children to explore, experiment and express themselves, Luminaire, Design Miami, and Fuseproject have invited seven prominent contemporary visual artists to do the same. Asked to treat the laptop as they would a blank canvas, these participating artists have transformed our familiar aesthetic and functional notions of the laptop computer.
The 7 artists are David Altmejd, John Baldessari, Olafur Eliasson, Catherine Opie, Ugo Rondinone, Cindy Sherman and Richard Tuttle.
XO Laptop customized by Cindy Sherman
and this one by Richard Tuttle
These pieces of art are being auctioned online with 100% of the proceeds to support the OLPC project.
We already knew the elegant and simple shapes of the toys made by Swedish company Playsam. In a rather similar archetypal approach, but nevertheless with a very personal formal language, Dutch designer Floris Hovers creates model cars which are likely to attract children as much as grown-ups. The cars are hand made from steel extrusions. They are not in production yet, the designer is in search of a manufacturer. It is a pity because I would have placed one or two on my Christmas list. Until then, one will have to be satisfied with the images of the many models of the Arche Toy series visible on Floris' website.
This is a project for a great Playground done by designers Alain Gilles, C. Fidalgo and M. Leroy.
"Young children acquire most of their social behaviors through playing with others. So, what they play with greatly matters. In large urban cities, the playground is often one of the few outside place children have free access to. It is time to redefine the functions a playground should offer in ten years from now. Considering that most social needs of children age 3 to 8 will not have significantly changed, as tends to show different various scientific analysis of the evolution of society, cities and children in general. They obviously need to exercise outside, but they must also acquire self-confidence and social values. Too often, playgrounds are seen as boring and are deserted after a while. Hence, the idea to have a solid structures allowing for different games to be rotated between playgrounds, or even within every playground itself. So the various elements are held to the ground by a series of studs evenly embedded within the foundation of the playground itself. It goes without saying that this grid is a constraint that has to be taken into account during the conception of each interchangeable element. It plays a role in the determination of the size and shape of each game, just as much as the ergonomics and general legislations. In order to make sure that the elements of the playground could be financially accessible to a wide range of communities the pieces have been designed to be producible using generally accessible technology: metalwork, rotation molding, PUR foam, recycled rubber… The various element of the playground are meant to foster the acquisition of some values needed to live in a community. So some games will in a way highlight some social behaviors and encourage communication, independence, self-esteem, respect for others and for what belongs to the community, but also encourage the need to behave as the majority, as well as encourage young children to find their own path and venture out."
