Baby-Lonia

These shapes were designed with a view to providing educational equipment for a number of experimental schools in the Turin area in the early ’70s. The concept was based on the scaling-up of the old boxes of wooden building blocks given to children to play with. With the change of dimension and the use of coated polyurethane, the shapes became a tool for the construction of child-scale spaces. This meant giving the children another tool for expression and communication, allowing them to manipulate their own space to meet their requirements in terms of play and learning.The geometric abstraction of the single elements – albeit with their formal evocations – afforded infinite possibilities for use and symbolic interpretations, thus giving free reign to the child’s creativity. The shapes were tested out in partnership with Professor Francesco De Bartolomeis, a pedagogy expert from the University of Turin, at a number of nursery, primary and middle schools, for educational activities and drama sessions.