Rules For Fun

Year/2022
A workshop conducted with 3rd and 5th graders of Togatta Elementary School in Zao, as well as its exhibition.
I believe that the rules that children create in their play are a creative act to understand things from their own perspective and find ways to enjoy them. Based on this perspective, I focused on how they create rules to entertain themselves and others, and how I, as a designer, can stimulate their creativity.

For the workshop, I used scrap wood from the kokeshi dolls and wood carvings produced in Togatta, and based my thinking on a very simple game of sticking the pieces of wood in a wooden box and rolling a ball around in it.

The third graders were asked to think about what kind of game would be exciting for them, and to create a game and its rules and story to entertain themselves, while the fifth graders were asked to think about how they could make the game more difficult and how they could entertain others, based on the assumption that others would play the game. The fifth graders were asked to think about the game and its rules from the viewpoint of other people.

A project participating in the Togatta Residence Program ZAO EXPO'22.




Scenes from the workshop. In order to emphasize the importance of "no failure," the wooden pieces were simply attached with strong double-sided tape so that they could be easily replaced at any time. It was impressive to see how, after completing a puzzle, participants tried playing with it on their own or with their friends, and how they became motivated to add more obstacles, change the goal to a different location, or change the rules themselves.