"Construction toys make better boys" - Article for the Magazine Dinâmicas

Here is the last number #3 of the Magazine Dinâmicas from the Industrial Design Course at Soares dos Reis School of Arts in Porto. This time is in portuguese language and it is surrounded by other very interesting articles about several issues around teaching and design processes. 

The edition is quite good both in the contents selection (you can find my article between the pages 38 and 45), and in the design layout. 

Please enjoy your reading.

The link: http://issuu.com/dinamicas_easr/docs/dinamicas_3_easr

Architectural toys conference at Soares dos Reis School of Arts

Next Monday I'll be at Soares dos Reis School of Arts in Porto for a brief conference about Architectural toys. This event is insert in a large commemoration of 130 years of that School and will be one more opportunity to spread my work for younger people. 

This time I'll talk mostly about the relationship between the design studio exercise, that is a characteristic of all art courses, and the idea of play. Indeed play is an action quite close to the design process in a school context because it is under simulated and controlled circumstances too. Behind that play is, as design studio teaching, a reduction of  complexity and it is restricted in a certain space and time (following the famous Huizinga theory about play as explained in his book Homo Ludens).   Toys are powerful devices in order to educate young children, through play, for the creation as an uncertain and  heuristics thinking route, as design thinking is.

Please find here the main poster: