The architecture of construction toys in the digital era by Bart Smith

The

Architecture of

Construction Toys I N T H E DI GI TA L ER A

Bartholomew Smith | 150130976

IF THERE IS A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS AND ARCHITECTURE, HOW DO CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS INFLUENCE ARCHITECTURE?

Contents 1.

Introduction 9

Evolution of the construction toy

2.1. Building blocks of pedagogy

2.2. Changing world, changing toys

Construction toys & architecture

3.1. Architecture in toys

3.2. Toys in architecture

Contemporary construction toys

4.1. Brick by virtual brick

4.2. Lego 42 4.3. Minecraft 44 4.4. Digital play

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Contemporary construction toys & architecture 59

5.1. Building digitally

5.2. Minecraft architecture

5.3. The lineage of Froebel

5.4. Analogue toys in a digital world

Conclusion & bibliography

6.1. Conclusion 76 6.2. Bibliography 80 6.3. Image references

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Introduction

1. Colin Fanning and Rebecca Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’, in Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community and Possibilities (McFarland, 2014). 2. Maaike Lauwaert, The Place of Play : Toys and Digital Cultures, MediaMatters (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009). 3. Beth M. Casey et al., ‘The Development of Spatial Skills Through Interventions Involving Block Building Activities’, Cognition and Instruction 26, no. 3 (8 July 2008): 269–309, doi:10.1080/07370000802177177. 4. Lauwaert, The Place of Play.

5. Tamar Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play: Intimations of Modernism in Architectural Toys, 1836--1952’ (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2006).

6. Brenda Vale and Robert Vale, Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings (New York, New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2013).

From the earliest days of the field, educational theory about the importance of play in childhood development has been intrinsically tied with the act of stacking, shaping and building objects.1 Since the mid-19th century, toys - especially construction toys - have been promoted as educational and beneficial to children’s development. They bring a sanitised version of reality into the home where they can be shaped by the limitless imagination of children.2 There is an undoubted role for architectural toys as a means of fostering creativity, appreciating design and developing an understanding of construction. At an early stage they can help to introduce develop visual-spatial skills and the basics of stacking.3 As children and the toys become more advanced they can start to address numerous topics including engineering, architectural design and urban planning.4 Many of these toys reflect the social, cultural and wider trends of the age; the fossil-fuelled rise of mass-production and the car in the mid-20th century can be seen in both the manufacturing and also the themes of toys of the era. The prevalent architectural tastes are clearly visible in the designs promoted in children’s construction kits of a time5. However, it can also be argued that the impact that toys have on a child’s development can be seen in the architecture of those that grew up with them. Parallels have been drawn between the work of architects and the toys which they played with as children, notably Frank Lloyd Wright and Froebel’s gifts, and Richard Rogers and Meccano6.

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More recently there has been a huge shift in how children use and interact with construction toys. Whilst some have bemoaned a trend in the latter twentieth and start of the twenty-first centuries towards a ‘dumbing down’ in toys such as Lego that elicits less creativity and imagination7, recent years have seen an explosion in popularity of digital construction toys like Minecraft.8 This new realm offers almost limitless freedom and scope, with some heralding it as the new tool for inventively reshaping how we understand and design space.9 Indeed, it has been appropriated as a tool by a diverse spread of people and organisations within design, education and science. These include architects10, artists11and even Ordinance Survey12. The adoption of the software into schools13 seems to suggest that it is following in the long tradition of educational construction toys started by Friedrich Froebel, creator of the first kindergarten. This dissertation seeks to explore that notion. It examines the literature surrounding the interrelationships of historical construction toys and architecture, identifying trends that may continue to this day and into the future. It looks at Lego and Minecraft as two case studies of contemporary physical and digital construction toys and how they relate to architecture and beyond.

7. Ibid. 8. Tracy McVeigh, ‘Minecraft: How a Game with No Rules Changed the Rules of the Game for Ever’, The Guardian, 16 November 2013, sec. Technology, http://www.theguardian.com/ technology/2013/nov/16/minecraft-game-norules-changed-gaming. 9. Future of StoryTelling, Worldcraft: Bjarke Ingels (Future of StoryTelling 2014), accessed 23 February 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=19&v=pyNGDWnmX0U. 10. Kim O’Connell, ‘How Minecraft Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Architects’, ArchDaily, 5 February 2016, http://www.archdaily. com/781644/how-minecraft-is-inspiring-the-nextgeneration-of-young-architects. 11. Jonathan Jones, ‘Minecraft at Tate: In Gaming, the Renaissance Has Returned’, The Guardian, 26 November 2014, sec. Art and design, http://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2014/nov/26/minecraft-tate-worldspaintings-3d-reality. 12. Samuel Gibbs and Keith Stuart, ‘Minecraft Map of Britain Created by Ordnance Survey’, The Guardian, 24 September 2013, sec. Technology, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/ sep/24/minecraft-map-of-britain-ordnancesurvey. 13. Leo Kelion, ‘Minecraft to Launch Education Edition’, BBC News, accessed 24 February 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35341528.

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Evolution of the construction toy

2.1 14. Amy Fumiko Ogata, Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America, Architecture, Landscape, and American Culture Series (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 15. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 16. John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (A. and J. Churchill, 1693). p120. 17. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, ou de l’education (Jean Neaulme, 1762). 18. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child. 19. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: Or, On Education (Basic Books, 1979). p79. 20. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, ABC der Anschauung oder Anschauungs-Lehre der Maßverhältnisse (Geßner ; Cotta, 1803). 21. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child.

22. Mark Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture (Taylor & Francis, 2014).

Building blocks of pedagogy HOW DID THE CONSTRUCTION TOY FIRST DEVELOP? Although it is likely to be the case that children have played, stacked and built throughout mankind’s history, numerous authors argue that it was not until the Enlightenment scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries that the concept of the child as a creative individual that could be shaped and developed though play and education first arose14. Many trace such ideas back to the writings of John Locke in 1693 and the concept of the ‘tabula rasa’ – where children were a blank slate to be educated through his model15. Despite much of his teaching reflecting the expected strict hierarchy between children and their superiors and elders, it is notable that he also suggests that curiosity should be “carefully cherished”16. This was followed by Rousseau, writing in 176217, who introduced the romantic notion of the child as an innocent living in harmony with the outside world, free from the shackles of imposed societal pressures. He radically departs from the contemporary philosophies around childhood,18 urging the reader, “Love childhood; promote its games, its pleasures”19. Later, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi proposed the concept of ‘Anschauung’ – ‘sense-impression’ or ‘object-lesson’ – as the underpinning of all knowledge.20, 21 He saw the fundamental basis of learning as being through engaging on a sensory level with objects, rather than verbally, which led to the development of pedagogical drawing exercises for children. These sought to break down objects into simplified geometric forms, with the square the foundation of them all.22

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Working alongside Pestalozzi for several years was the man many consider to be the father of the construction toy23, and inventor of the kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel. Through this work he developed the belief in the development of creativity through play as opposed to discipline.24 He advanced Pestalozzi’s concept of the ‘object-lesson’ into a series of ‘gifts’, three dimensional toys made of natural materials and brightly coloured in appearance. These gifts would nurture a child’s “impulse to creative and formative activity”25, training their senses and capabilities, to ultimately achieve a harmonious synergy between man, God and nature.26 The gifts started with the sphere, before introducing additional forms and also the concepts of divisibility and numbers with a cube made up of eight smaller cubes.27 The fifth gift, the ‘building boxes’, can be argued to be the genesis of the construction toy28. The most well-known of Froebel’s gifts, these were a set of mathematically related triangular and rectilinear blocks that could arranged to explore their interrelationships. Throughout play, forms could ultimately display a lesser degree of abstraction, as through stacking, simplified structures and buildings were created.29

23. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet.

24. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture.

25. Friedrich Fröbel, Friedrich Froebel’s Pedagogics of the Kindergarten (Woodward & Tiernan, 1904). p83. 26. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child.

27. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture.

28. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet.

29. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture.

Figure 1. Froebel’s Gift Number 5

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2.2

Changing world, changing toys HOW DID THE CONSTRUCTION TOY EVOLVE?

30. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’.

31. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method: Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Children’s Houses with Additions and Revisions (Read Books Ltd, 2013). 32. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 33. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture. Figure 2. Modern version of Montessori’s ‘Tower’

A combination of advances in manufacturing, increased emphasis on childhood development and burgeoning middle classes led to a surge in the popularity of construction toys in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Western world. Froebel’s system could be easily replicated and mass-produced, and it was followed by numerous, increasingly complex toys that expanded upon the simple stacking technique into ever more-elaborate systems of construction.30 Froebel’s ideas were expanded upon by another significant pedagogue, Maria Montessori, whose work with young, and intellectually challenged, children led to the development of successful and now commonplace system of early education; this was accompanied by her own designs for geometric blocks for constructing forms such as ‘Broad Stair’, ‘Long Stair’ and ‘Tower’.31 Fanning & Mir suggest that the more overt developmental purpose and prescriptive final product means that such an approach negates its role as toy to stimulate imagination and creativity.32 Montessori may overall have had less emphasis upon creative construction and form manipulation, with significantly different apparatus, but Dudek argues that whilst unalike in form, the psychological methodology underpinning the creations of Froebel and Montessori were inherently familiar.33 Indeed, the vital importance both placed upon developing and learning from physical interaction with tactile objects is evident.

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Others took an alternative route from Froebel’s genesis, instead moving away from simplistic, abstracted forms into more overtly architectural toys aimed at older audiences. Although using the language of Froebel to market them34, ‘Ankerstein Baukasten – Anchor Stone Building Blocks’ – were one of the first massproduced building toys that move towards increased ornamentation and a more explicit focus on direct architectural representation and replication35. In contrast to the deliberately vague instruction of Froebel, the Anchor Blocks came accompanied with detailed plans and elevations describing the castles and churches that could be fabricated.36 A greater shift in the nature of construction toys occurred from the turn of the twentieth century onwards. Lauwaert proposes that there is a noticeable shift from the stacking blocks of Froebel and others, into what she dubs “second-generation construction

Figure 3. ‘Ankerstein Baukasten – Anchor Stone Building Blocks’ 34. A Williams, ‘Towards a Geometry of Childhood: The Visual Culture of Toy Bricks in Britain C. 1900-1940’ (Bath Spa University College, 1999). 35. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 36. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’.

Figure 4. Transitional wooden construction toy showing slightly imprecise interlocking mechanism

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Figure 5. Box of Meccano from 1948-1954

37. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. p47.

38. Ibid.

toys”37. These display far greater complexity due to advances in materials and the development of interlocking mechanisms. With the design potential of the wooden and stone blocks severely limited, ‘transitional construction toys’ began to develop new means of affixing these elements but were hamstrung by the constrains of the materials. However, when paired with materials – such as metal – now more widely available and readily mass-produced, a far greater scope of childhood creation was enabled.38 Many of the examples of this generation of toys, Meccano, Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets, suggested mimicry of the rapidly changing built world in their packaging and instructions. The diversity of pieces and the methods of affixing them increased significantly. Meccano, invented in 1901 by Frank Hornby of model railway fame, used small steel girders and plates that could be attached with miniature

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nuts and bolts39. The properties of the steel, robust connections and the generally flat components lent itself to principally tensile forms that could be extremely strong, contrasting with the fragility of the carefully balanced stacking blocks. Lauwaert suggests that this second generation was made up of ‘designing toys’ as opposed to the ‘building toys’ of the previous generation; these toys were more concerned with design as both the means and the subject of the play.40 Meccano sets showed a vast diversity of models to construct on their boxes and accompanying manuals, even if they couldn’t always be built from the parts in the kit.41 Whilst this new breed of toy became increasingly popular, there also remained a substantial role for the earlier, more simplistic block stacking sets – typically marketed at younger children. Another substantial evolution in construction toys was the arrival of plastic. Its first adoption as a material used in children’s playthings was a result of necessity: the First World War led to shortages in materials such as wood and metal, which led to initial forays into investigating the substance by companies in the UK42. Another seismic global conflict, paired with industrialisation and deforestation in Western Europe, would lead to the shift to plastic for one of the most well-known toys of the twentieth century, Lego.43 First introducing their ‘Automatic Binding Bricks’ in 1949, Lego had previously been involved in the small-scale manufacture of wooden toys but began to explore the plastic blocks, inspired those first produced in 1946 by designer and child psychologist Hilary Page.44 Originally having similar connections and a strong resemblance to several existing building blocks, a design refinement in 1958 is frequently credited from setting the product apart from its rivals.45,46 This allowed for considerably better connections between the block, hidden from view and far more precise. As such a much larger range of construction opportunities opened up.

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39. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’.

40. Lauwaert, The Place of Play.

41. ‘Lego - The Building Blocks of Architecture’, The Culture Show (BBC 2, 10 February 2014), http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vkt8l.

Figure 6. Hilary Page’s Kiddicraft building bricks 42. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 43. ‘Lego - The Building Blocks of Architecture’. 44. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 46. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 45. Ibid.

Figure 7. Patent for Legoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s now commonplace brick design, Kirk Christiansen Godtfred, Toy building brick, US3005282 A (1958)

Overall, one can conclude that there was a general trend from the infancy of the construction toy to the mid-point of the twentieth century towards increased complexity. This is clearly partially due to industrialisation, with the dawn of mass-production and an everincreasing palette of materials allowing for easily replicable, intricate systems of construction. It can also be linked to greater levels of disposable income and growing middle classes, as the market for toys, especially slightly older children expanded. Indeed, perhaps the clearest pattern displayed is in the target audiences; the early days of construction toys concern young children and are intrinsically tied to the development of the kindergarten. The creators of later toys, Lauwaert’s second-generation ‘designing toys’, had older and more developed children in mind when producing and marketing them.47 This partially explains, or is a result of, an inclination towards ever more realistic models.

“The last thing a child needs in a toy is utter realism”48 A shift in pedagogical thinking post-war, coupled with optimistic ideas of utopian regeneration, brought a resurgence in popularity of a more simplified and abstracted toy. Educators and designers moved away from the specialisation and realism seen in construction toys of the early 20th century49, with some contemporaneous researchers bemoaning the lack of creativity in an education system and toy market preoccupied with only “factualism and usefulness”50. As a result, there was something of a return to the philosophies of Froebel and Montessori, with emphasis shifting to the developmental benefits of abstraction and minimalism51. Ogata also suggests that in the West, especially the USA, associations were made between the

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47. Ibid.

48. E P, ‘The Child at Play in the World of Form’, Progressive Architecture 47 (April 1966): 191–98.

49. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child. 50. Jacob W. Getzels and Philip Wesley Jackson, Creativity and Intelligence: Explorations with Gifted Students (Wiley, 1962).{\\i{}Creativity and Intelligence: Explorations with Gifted Students} (Wiley, 1962 p121. 51. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’.

52. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child.

53. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 54. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 55. Ibid. 56. Ulrik Jørgensen, ‘The LEGO Bric System under Reconstruction’, Path Creation and Dependency, 1998.

toys of creative play and the democratic values they purportedly exemplified. However, heightened by the tensions of the Cold War, this also led to critiques of Froebellian pedagogy, which was seen to be too restrictive and rigidly systematic.52 Lego prospered due to this desire for open-ended creativity. Early sets of Lego were marketed with very specific suggestions for their use – mostly domestic and civic architecture that sat in a wider planned town context. 53 Promotional brochures showed Lego being used almost exclusively for the creation of contemporary architecture54. Lauwert suggests that even the choice of language by the company to describe the toy in its native Denmark reflects this55; instead of the more neutral ‘klodser’, the chosen ‘Mursten’ emphasises that the product was specifically a brick for housebuilding56.

Figure 8. LEGO Town Plan Board, Continental European Cardboard Version, 1959

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However, they began to diversify their product range, underpinned by the concept of the toy as “a system of abstract, modular components”57. The first Lego bricks had poor attachments which limited their functionality to simple vertical stacking, which lent themselves to basic walls and houses58. The strength and versatility of the stud-and-tube block design allowed for greater freedom of design from before, opening the toys up to considerably more experimentation of form.59 Fanning and Mir suggest that the dominant marketing narrative was the ability of Lego to allow children to build anything they could imagine.60

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57. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. p48. 58. Daniel Lipkowitz, The Lego Book (Dorling Kindersley, 2012). 59. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 60. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’.

Construction toys & architecture UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORIC INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION TOYS AND ARCHITECTURAL TRENDS

3.1

Architecture in toys TO WHAT EXTENT HAVE TOYS, ESPECIALLY CONSTRUCTION TOYS, REFLECTED THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL TRENDS AND PARTICULARLY ARCHITECTURAL TRENDS OF THE TIME?

Numerous people have explored the relationship between construction toys and the trends in architecture prevalent during their inception.

61. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’.

62. Juliet Kinchin and Aidan O’Connor, Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012).

Perhaps the most thorough examination of architecture’s influence upon toys is by Zinguer, who studies their evolution from 1836 to 1952.61 She uses a series of case studies to investigate how the economic, societal and technologic themes of a time manifest themselves in contemporaneous construction toys. She suggests a link from the prevailing architectural trends of the age to the ‘systems of construction’ that underpin the assembly and interaction of the toy components. Starting – as many others examining the subject area have also62 – with Froebel’s ‘Gifts’, she examines how the themes of pattern and rationality, as well as the solidity of block building, tie into the ideas of the time.

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The next case study investigated is that of the Anchor Stone Building Blocks, designed by Gustav and Otto Lilienthal in 1877. Zinguer suggests that the toy alludes to “prefabrication, mobility and a move out of the congested city”63 by breaking down the 19th century space typologies. She also argues that the miniaturised blocks, developed alongside the advent of flight, reflect how new means of looking at industrialised urban areas – i.e. from above – were feeding into architectural and planning ideas of the time.64 Vale and Vale join Zinguer in suggesting that Meccano, one of the most recognisable toys of the twentieth century, is undeniably linked to ideas of industrialisation, grand infrastructure and mechanisation65. They claim that the metal girder construction harks towards the new steel-framed language of architecture at the time, and the standardised parts are indicative of moves towards greater mass production.66 Similarly, Kinchin suggests that the nursery furniture and toys designed in 1923 by Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, some of the first manifestations of Bauhaus principles in domestic design, also exhibit ideas of replicability and mass production, albeit through a contrasting aesthetic of simple geometric forms and bold colours.67 Zinguer goes on to argue that the move towards a lighter weight, prefabricated architecture in the postwar years can be seen in Charles and Ray Eames’ ‘House of Cards’, designed by the couple in 1952. Kirkham concurs, saying the toy clearly exhibits the Eames’ aesthetic of addition and juxtaposition, alongside the obvious feature of its modular construction.68

Figure 9. First aerial photograph of a city, captured from a balloon above Boston in 1860 63. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’. p14. 64. Ibid. 65. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet. 66. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’. 67. Kinchin and O’Connor, Century of the Child. 68. Pat Kirkham, Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century (MIT Press, 1998). Figure 10. Steel frame construction of the Morning Post Building, London (1906-10)

Another aspect of the years following the Second World War – the inherent optimism in urban planning, rebuilding and improving the devastated cities and communities – is also exhibited in the

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Figure 11. Contemporary versions of Charles and Ray Eamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; House of Cards (1952)

construction toys of the era according to many69. Early Lego sets were amongst many that sought to unify their products in a new, improved and master-planned world; Lego’s first theme was that of the ‘Town Plan’70. There is little discourse on the links between contemporary construction toys and current design trends. This is perhaps a reflection of the diminishing multidisciplinary nature of many architects, with far fewer examples of such influential subjectstraddling figures such as the Charles and Ray Eames. There is also the oft-cited increasing prevalence of other forms of entertainment for children. 71

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69. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. 70. Lipkowitz, The Lego Book.

71. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet.

3.2

72. Edwin Heathcote, ‘Toytown and the City’, Financial Times, 9 August 2013, http://www. ft.com/cms/s/2/ab0f3f42-feb3-11e2-b9b000144feabdc0.html.

73. W. Wordworth, ‘My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold’ (1802) in Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet. 74. Ibid. p7.

Toys in architecture TO WHAT EXTENT IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN THE THEMES PREVALENT IN AN ERA OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SUBSEQUENT GENERATION WHO GREW UP WITH THEM?

“With construction toys, you are grounded on the floor, mired in the shortage of pieces, the necessity to improvise, up against the frustrations of gravity, imperfect joints and commercial compromise. The perfect start for an architect”72 Whilst the influence of architecture upon construction toys is wellestablished, others have highlighted how there is also an inverse relationship, with toys playing a key role in shaping the development of the generation who grow up with them. This reciprocity is the key theme examined by Brenda and Robert Vale in Architecture on the carpet. They pose the question: “if, according to Wordsworth, ‘the child is the father of man’73, does the construction toy therefore make the architect?”74. Some have drawn parallels with the abstracted forms of the earliest educational toys and similar forms in modernist art and architecture.

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In his history of Froebel’s original kindergarten, Brosterman proposes that there are clear ties between the simplistic forms of Froebel’s ‘gifts’ and ideas of geometric abstraction that arrived in design movements decades later. He presents the work of notable kindergarten attendees including architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, and artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Mondrian, arguing that there is both correlation and probable causation with the forward-thinking visual language they were exposed to at an early age.75 Similarly, Kinchin argues that the experimental abstraction of progressive architect-designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo – who went on to influence the Arts and Crafts movement – shows the undisputable impact of the play with wooden blocks that made up his childhood.76 Other authors have also postulated that connections can be made between primitivism, along with other aspects of modern art and design, with the playful design of children.77

75. Norman Brosterman and Kiyoshi Togashi, Inventing Kindergarten (New York, N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997). 76. Kinchin and O’Connor, Century of the Child. 77. Jonathan Fineberg, ed., Discovering Child Art: Essays on Childhood, Primitivism, and Modernism, New Ed edition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001).

Figure 12. Avery Coonley School, Frank Lloyd Wright (1912)

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78. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture.

79. Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography (Pomegranate, 2005). p13.

80. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture. 81. Grant Manson, ‘Wright in the Nursery. The Influence of Froebel Education on the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright’, The Architectural Review 113 (1953): 143–46. 82. Richard C. MacCormac, ‘The Anatomy of Wright’s Aesthetic’, Architectural Review 143, no. 852 (1968): 143.

83. Frank Lloyd Wright in Ibid. p137. 84. Jeanne S. Rubin, ‘The Froebel-Wright Kindergarten Connection: A New Perspective’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 48, no. 1 (1989): 24–37, doi:10.2307/990404. 85. Edgar Kaufmann, ‘“Form Became Feeling,” a New View of Froebel and Wright’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 40, no. 2 (1981): 130–37, doi:10.2307/989726. p132. 86. Ibid.

The connection between Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and his early play with Froebel’s blocks is the most extensively researched.78 Most explicitly, he himself speaks of the joy of playing with the Gifts, opening his eyes to the worlds of colour and shape. “The smooth shapely maple blocks with which to build, the sense of which never afterward leaves the fingers: form becoming feeling”79 Whilst such direct reference to something that he feels had a large influence upon his childhood is significant, it is also possible there is an element of nostalgia-driven over-emphasis, even on the part of Wright himself. Dudek suggests that the earliest writing about a causal relationship between Wright’s work and his completed buildings is back in 1953, in an article by Grant C. Manson.80 Manson argues that the overall forms of Wright’s early architecture have clear parallels with Froebel’s blocks and must have acted as a subconscious design stimulus81. A later proposition by Richard MacCormac highlights the role of the Gifts in his formation and manipulation of space, analysing his floor plans against ‘Froebelian precedents’.82 The role of composition within the grid and concepts of crystallisation within nature is another important strand that MacCormac addresses; Wright himself is again quoted about this underlying principle of straight line and set square, “inherent in the Froebel system of kindergarten training given to me by my mother”83. This theme is expanded upon by Jeanne Rubin in her paper exploring the crystalline forms that had a substantial bearing upon Froebel and subsequently Wright.84 Perhaps most interestingly is the argument proposed by Edgar Kauffman. He dismisses Manson’s preoccupation with simply form – “trapped in the dogma of the day”85 – and MacCormac’s overly reductive fixation with symmetry and the grid, accused of overlooking elements of Wright’s architecture diverging from this86.

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Instead, Kauffman proposes that the relationship between Froebel and Wright is both “different and deeper than has ever been claimed by investigators up to now”87. It was more about awakening Wright to the fundamental poetry of the visual arts and fomenting his own intrinsic artistic sensibilities.88 Kaufmann draws out the parallels between Froebel’s teaching and Wright’s desire to harmonise mankind, shelter and environment, and his search for universal value in architecture.89

87. Ibid. p132. 88. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture.

89. Kaufmann, ‘“Form Became Feeling,” a New View of Froebel and Wright’. Figure 13. Centre Pompidou, Richard Rogers & Renzo Piano (1971-77)

90. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet.

For many, the most visually overt example of the link between construction toys and subsequent architecture is seen with Meccano. Vale and Vale stress the fact that despite being marketed as an engineering toy, with little to no suggestion of it as a means of creating architecture, it is frequently cited as a source of inspiration.90 Certainly numerous individuals, including the architects themselves91, have drawn attention as to how High-Tech architecture, as championed by Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, have elements of structural expressivism that evoke the nuts, bolts and girders of Meccano.92,93 Indeed, the connections between much of Foster and Roger’s work and the toy are so established that it is often popularly dubbed ‘Meccano architecture’94,95.

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91. Mike Davies, Senior Partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners talks of his love of Meccano and its obvious parallels with the practices work in the programme, ‘Lego - The Building Blocks of Architecture’. 92. Deyan Sudjic, Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture (Hachette UK, 2010). 93. John Lichfield, ‘Deconstructing Meccano: The Story of a British Icon’, The Independent, 10 April 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ europe/deconstructing-meccano-the-story-of-abritish-icon-1940749.html. 94. Paul Johnson, ‘Babel’s Babies’, accessed 24 February 2016, http://thisrecording.com/ today/2010/11/30/in-which-we-get-high-andascend-into-nothingness.html. 95. Colin Davies, High Tech Architecture (Rizzoli International Publications, Incorporated, 1988).

96. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, ‘Centre Georges Pompidou: Piano & Rogers: A Statement’, Architectural Design, February 1977. p87.

97. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet. Figure 14. 6X6 Demountable House, Jean Prouvé (1944)

However, Vale and Vale, along with Zinguer, do also make the point that much of what is labelled as such often only bears a superficial similarity to the principles of Meccano. The Pompidou Centre may be one of the most repeatedly named examples of construction toy-influenced architecture, even dubbed “a giant Meccano set”96, but in both texts the authors argue that the representation is merely skin deep. The custom-built components that make up the building do not display the principles of flexibility and movement that underpin Meccano’s construction system. Indeed, Vale and Vale suggest that it is more appropriate to link prefabricated architecture, such as housing designed by Prouvé in 1944, with the philosophies that govern Meccano.97 One challenge evident within the literature is evidencing the influence that construction toys have had upon architecture. For the inverse, the number of architects or designers who have developed toys is relatively small, and trends are easier to establish. Designed by adults, linking toys to the themes of their era is considerably easier due to temporal and aesthetic proximity. However, when illustrating the impact of construction toys upon individual’s designs later in life the evidence is of a less identifiable nature. The architects themselves may be able to speculate as to their early design stimuli, but given how much they may have unconsciously assimilated, and how long ago it occurred, it is quite possible that they may not be sure themselves.

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As such, one could argue that there are areas of speculation within the writings suggesting a causal relationship between toys and later architectural design. For instance, Vale and Vale put forward the idea that Jean ProuvĂŠ was influenced by Meccano purely on the fact that is was on sale in France during his upbringing; they acknowledge that he himself made no reference to it.98 Whilst there are undoubted thematic similarities, it could be said to be something of a stretch of abductive reasoning to conclude causality from this correlation.

98. Ibid.

ontemporary construction toys

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Contemporary construction toys

4.1

Brick by virtual brick HOW ARE CONSTRUCTION TOYS CURRENTLY CHANGING? Contemporary research has shown significant shifts in the childhood play. By far and away the largest change in construction toys, as with many other aspects of society, has been the digitalisation of play, even at young ages. Computer games and virtual toys have become ubiquitous, offering alternatives and possible enhancements to traditional physical playthings. The dollhouse typology can be seen taken to another level of complexity in games such as the Sims, previously imagined fights between action figures in shooters and perhaps the box of Lego bricks spread out over the carpet is mimicked by Minecraft.

Figure 15. Frequency of different types of play in chlidren aged 12 and under, adapted from Michael Cohen, ‘Touch Screens’, 2014, http:// www.mcgrc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ MCGRC_Digital-Kids-Presentation_022014.pdf.

Board games

Very often Often

Puzzles Play vehicles Game consoles Construction & blocks Arts & crafts Dolls & action figures Touch screens 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

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DKK billions

36 32 28

Figure 16. Lego sales over the years, adapted from Bill Breen and David Robertson, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (Random House, 2013); also using additional data from ‘The LEGO Group Annual Report 2015’ (The Lego Group, February 2016).

24 20 16 12 8 4

1940

1960

1980

2010

The prevalence of these new forms of entertainment has seen traditional toymakers suffer, with some of the sector’s largest companies exhibiting stagnant growth in recent years. Despite this, there appears to still be significant demand for physical construction toys, evidenced by the Lego Groups’ current position as the largest toy company in the world. The company overtook Mattell, the makers of Barbie dolls, in 2014 after quadrupling its revenue in less than a decade.99 Towards the end of the twentieth century, the company diversified its product range significantly – moving into theme parks, films and indeed computer games. It also sought to reframe the toy as a product to be played with rather than constructed, moving from what it saw as an old-fashioned focus on assembly.100 Many saw this as a ‘dumbed down’ approach and one that stifled creativity101. As a result of plunging revenues in the early 2000s, the company was prompted to seek a return to its core brand identity.102 THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

99. Jacob Davidson, ‘Lego Is Now The Largest Toy Company In The World’, Time, 4 September 2014, http://time.com/money/3268065/legolargest-toy-company-mattel/. 100. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 101. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet. 102. Bill Breen and David Robertson, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (Random House, 2013).

Figure 17. City overview from SimCity, Maxis (2013)

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Although on one hand representing this negatively received product diversification, 2014’s The Lego Movie actually sets out the company’s attempts to restore the notion of Lego brick system as a catalyst for free-form creativity. It skewers those who take a conformist and unimaginative approach to what Lord and Miller present as a creatively limitless medium103; Walters argues that it postulates that the solution to society’s problems lie in imagination and innovation.104 Fundamentally, the business still aims to have the building brick system at its heart.105 106 In the digital sphere, numerous games have incorporated aspects of the physical construction toy. Some have had a focus on domestic architecture, such as the Sims, which has allowed players to craft homes – typically detached in a suburban setting – for the virtual individuals they control. Others have been based around urban planning as a key theme; the Sim City franchise is centred around building a city from greenfield. However, the game is focused upon management and the balancing of resources with the demands of the artificial populous, with limited creative input from the player as to the nature and design of buildings. Similarly, the Sims places relatively simplistic house design as only the precursor to the main social interaction element of the game. Few computer games have sought to directly mimic the assembly and design element of physical construction toys as a sole feature, perhaps as a result of the increased scope of digital representation and a desire on the part of the makers to offer new experiences. In recent years, the market has become overshadowed by Minecraft. Minecraft dominates not just the category of games that involve construction, but all genres. It is likely to be the biggest selling PC game of all time107, and the only game to have sold more across all platforms is Tetris.108 As with others, it combines construction with other elements of gameplay, notably exploration, combat and crafting. However, it is often seen as the closest mainstream equivalent to the analogue toys, especially Lego, that preceded and influenced it.109

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103. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, The Lego Movie, Animation, Action, Adventure, (2014). 104. Ben Walters, ‘The Lego Movie – a Toy Story Every Adult Needs to See’, The Guardian, 11 February 2014, sec. Film, http://www. theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/11/lego-filmsubversive-countercultural. 105. Breen and Robertson, Brick by Brick. 106. ‘The LEGO Group Annual Report 2015’ (The Lego Group, February 2016).

Figure 18. Build Mode from The Sims 4, Maxis & The Sims Studio, 2014

107. ‘Minecraft Passes 22 Million PC Sales, Might Be the Best Selling PC Game of All Time’, PCGamesN, accessed 7 October 2016, http:// www.pcgamesn.com/minecraft/minecraft-passes22-million-pc-sales-might-be-the-best-selling-pcgame-of-all-time. 108. ‘The Best Selling PC Game Of All Time Is?’, accessed 7 October 2016, http://www. howtogeek.com/trivia/the-best-selling-pc-gameof-all-time-is/. 109. Paul Owens, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, Documentary, (2012).

4.2

Lego CASE STUDY 01 Lego’s flagship products are sets of interlocking plastic bricks, in a plethora of colours and transparencies, that can easily be connected and disconnected. The constituent pieces of all sets – all the way back to their inception – are universally compatible, based upon a stud and tube design. This typically enables bricks to be connected at their base to the top of the piece below.

Figure 19. Patent for Lego’s now ubiquitous minifigures, with slightly refined design (1979) 111. ‘Amazon.co.uk Best Sellers: The Most Popular Items in LEGO Store’, accessed 9 October 2016, https://www.amazon.co.uk/ Best-Sellers-Toys-Games-LEGO-Store/zgbs/ kids/423583031. 110. Lipkowitz, The Lego Book. 112. ‘The History and Evolution of the LEGO Minifigure’, Toys 2 Remember, accessed 9 October 2016, http://www.toys2remember. com/2010/11/lego-minifigure-history.html.

Sets of bricks are typically themed, and suggest a final constructed outcome on the box that following instructions deliver. Themes include castle, space and the long-standing Lego City range, which harks back to the company’s first building sets as part of a town plan. There is also a diverse roster of licensed sets that use themes from other aspects of culture, such as film – seen in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones collections. In addition to these themed sets, Lego also produce boxes of mixed pieces with only limited design suggestions in their Lego Classic range.110 These remain one of the most popular lines of toys.111 Since 1976, many sets have included ‘minifigures’ – humanoid figurines with moveable arms, legs and heads that give an indication of the scale of constructions.112 Current Lego sets have a wide range of diverse components. The oldest components are rectilinear blocks and plates; other common bricks incorporate slopes or curves to taper at their base or top. Wheels and building elements such as windows and doors are the most common non-block pieces, appearing in the Classic box sets. Themed sets are likely to have fewer conventional block-like bricks, but instead rely on more complex, pre-formed shapes.

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Figure 20. Assorted Lego bricks

4.3 113. ‘What Is Sandbox (in Gaming)? - Definition from Techopedia’, Techopedia.com, accessed 9 October 2016, https://www.techopedia.com/ definition/3952/sandbox-gaming.

114. Anthony Gallegos, ‘Minecraft Review’, IGN, 23 November 2011, http://www.ign.com/ articles/2011/11/24/minecraft-review.

115. Josh Miller-Watt, ‘Minecraft Beginner’s Guide’, Gamesradar, 8 April 2011, http://www. gamesradar.com/minecraft-beginners-guide/.

Minecraft CASE STUDY 02 Minecraft is a sandbox video game, meaning that it places the player in a virtual world with very few limitations placed upon the gamer and no specific end goals.113 The environment of play is a randomly generated landscape that loosely mimics reality, divided into a series of biomes of diverse terrain. Within these, simulations of day and night last for twenty minutes each. The majority of the world is composed of three dimensional cubes, located within an overarching grid. The core gameplay mechanic is concerned with the destruction and placement of these blocks and other elements, within the framework of the grid. The player typically navigates the world from a first person perspective along the surface of the world, not bound by the grid. Resources for construction are derived from the world, for instance mining or felling trees. These can then be combined, or ‘crafted’ into more advanced components. There is a huge range of ‘recipes’ that result in different outputs, such as tools for more efficient digging, building and fighting. The player is threatened by creatures that appear at night, necessitating building a shelter to survive, which can become more elaborate and complex as the game progresses.114 The game has several different modes in which core variables are amended. Survival mode revolves around avoiding death from the creatures and other factors including hunger, requiring the planting of crops. In creator mode, the player does not take damage, can fly and has access to all resources.115 Another key feature of the game is allowing multiple players to interact and collaborate in the same world through multiplayer servers.

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Figure 21. Minecraft promotional image

4.4 116. Keith Stuart, ‘Minecraft at 33 Million Users – a Personal Story’, The Guardian, 5 September 2013, sec. Technology, http://www.theguardian. com/technology/2013/sep/05/minecraft-33million-users.

117. Lauwaert, The Place of Play.

118. Ibid.

Digital play HOW DO VIRTUAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS DIFFER FROM THEIR PHYSICAL COUNTERPARTS? One of the reasons that so many have drawn parallels between Lego and Minecraft116, is the basic system of modular, block-like components that underpin both. However, beyond this immediate similarity, the fundamental constituents are quite dissimilar. Minecraft follows in the long line of successful construction toys to rely on a repeating module as its basis – in its case, the simplest three dimensional form of all. The one-meter cube, in a vast array of different variations, makes up the majority of the Minecraft world. In fact, it is keeping within the confines of this module for all its components that sets Minecraft apart from Lego, whose pieces range in size and form significantly. This is in part due to Lego’s necessity to act as a structure and carry loads – a span of any kind would be impossible without narrower bricks to act as columns and wider pieces as beams. However, it also reflects decisions made by the Lego Group in the mid-nineties to direct the nature of play with its toys away from the process of constructing them, and instead with the finished object. Narrative and role-playing became the key themes of their marketing of the product, away from past themes of construction and building117. As a result of this, Lego sets increasingly relied upon larger, preformed pieces that were unique to the kit. Speeding up the construction process, this also resulted in significant limitations for the re-use and re-purpose of the toy.118 Recent years have seen the company attempt to reassess and reverse this approach, having realised the damage this had dealt their brand; the company had disastrous

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

financial results in the early 2000s. Although the number of unique Lego elements has shrunk from a peak of nearly 13 000 to less than 7000119, plenty still argue that there remain too many complex, unambiguously representative components120,121. Instead Minecraft’s reliance upon the cube module is often nostalgically cited as being evocative of those earlier sets of Lego – a large box of bricks to be utilised in any way.122

119. Nelson D. Schwartz, ‘Turning to Hollywood Tie-Ins, Lego Thinks Beyond the Brick’, The New York Times, 5 September 2009, http://www. nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/global/06lego. html.

This initial simplicity of Minecraft’s individual unit masks an immense complexity to its configuration. Not dependent upon physical connections to the adjacent blocks, it nonetheless forms relationships with them. Working at a small scale, the Minecraft cube results in rigidly perpendicular, blocky constructions. There are no sloped or curved modules, and the right angle remains constant throughout. However, when multiplied up to a much wider scale and viewed from afar, the blocks can create surprisingly visually fluid and complex forms. Players can create pixelated versions of almost any geometry.

122. Game developer Peter Molyneux in director Paul Owens’, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, Documentary, (2012).

120. ‘Lego - The Building Blocks of Architecture’. 121. Vale and Vale, Architecture on the Carpet.

Figure 22. An example of a design of incredible complexity and variety of form

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

123. Graham Edgecombe, ‘Minecraft ID List’, accessed 28 September 2016, http://minecraftids.grahamedgecombe.com/.

124. Lauwaert, The Place of Play.

Often thought of as purely block-based, Minecraft actually has a hugely diverse roster of additional components. Whilst there are hundreds of different variants of the cube – with different colours, opacities and patterns representing diverse materials – there is also a language of other forms.123 Some are simple modifications of the basic cube shape, such as stair blocks – an extruded L-shape. Others are more tangible representations of everyday, historic and fantastical objects. The doors, fences, and panes of glass bring to mind the early architectural components that have been part of Lego since its earliest days124, and the construction lineage to which Minecraft undoubtedly belongs.

Figure 23. Some of the range of components available in Minecraft

125. Clive Thompson, ‘The Minecraft Generation’, The New York Times, 14 April 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/ the-minecraft-generation.html.

However, it is the dynamic components that offer the greatest potential for complexity. Simple hinges, switches and pressure plates can be combined with ‘redstone’ – the game’s simulation of energy transfer – in ever more advanced circuitry. It is relatively easy to craft systems that are in essence the start of programming; Thompson reports on the incredibly complicated traps, machines and computation developed by young children using these constituents.125 To an extent this aspect of design can be traced back to toys such as Meccano, where simple moving parts introduced

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

children to kinetic engineering. There are closer similarities to sub-strands of Lego, such as the Mindstorms range. These aimed to provide opportunities for children to explore the basics of programming with a system that piggybacked the existing Lego system.126 However, these components are quite costly, and come in separate, expensive sets marketed for older children for use in an educational environment; in short, are a far less integrated part of the toy’s fundamental architecture.

Figure 24. Lego Mindstorms EV3 set 126. Lipkowitz, The Lego Book.

“That is against the instructions!!”127

127. Main character Emmet initially struggles to break out the dogma of instruction in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s, The Lego Movie, Animation, Action, Adventure, (2014).

Figure 25. Emmet, The Lego Movie

One of the interesting contrasts between Lego and Minecraft is in the level of instruction offered to its audience. The majority of Lego’s sets come with a detailed step-by-step manual that seeks to guide the child towards a single final goal – the product on the front of the box. The visually unambiguous language of the Lego

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Figure 26. Instructions to Lego Set 60132 Service Station - City Town range (2016)

Figure 27. Excerpt from an Ikea instruction manual 128. Katharine Schwab, ‘How Ikea Designs Its (In)famous Instruction Manuals’, Co.Design, 28 October 2015, https://www.fastcodesign. com/3052604/how-ikea-designs-its-infamousinstruction-manuals.

instruction booklet is instantly recognisable, with little to no text that makes it both accessible to young children with limited literacy skills and indicative of the global appeal of the toy – requiring no translation. Only a straightforward numbering system accompanies the axonometric view of the blocks assembling themselves from step to step. The perspective of the creation remains almost constantly fixed throughout to avoid confusion, with every addition clearly visible. Many other toy companies have utilised similar, easily understood designs, as well as organisations like Ikea. The flat-pack furniture manufacturers have assembly booklets that borrow heavily from the example of the Lego instruction manual.128 One could argue that assembling a toy in three dimensions using such instructions is an important skill. It teaches about the representation of form in two dimensions and the relationship between that representation and reality; the assembler has to rotate and explore the components before matching the drawing

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSTRUCTION TOYS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

in front of them. However, such benefits are possibly outweighed by the prescriptive nature of such an instruction-based approach. It presents the outcome as the only desired product, steering the child away from a free-form, open-ended exploration.129 Such an inflexible approach seems to conflict with the marketing of the toys’ creative potential. Conversely, Minecraft is noted for the lack of help that it provides for new players, who are dropped into the virtual world with no instruction or tutorial. Although stemming back to the game’s lowbudget origins, when founder Marcus Persson, working alone, had no budget for tutorials130, this feature – or lack of – has remained despite the huge growth of the game. This could leave the initial player unsure how to move, manipulate, and, in one mode, survive the environment they find themselves in. It is curious therefore, that the game is often portrayed as so accessible and has achieved the success it has. However, it appears that this due to a fundamental difference in the relationship between players and instruction when comparing Minecraft to Lego, and even other computer games. Indeed, there is perhaps more instruction for Minecraft than any other toy in history, it is just that players access it a profoundly different way.131 Faced with the complex, unexplained world before them, players are forced to go out and search for sources of knowledge themselves. This results in an aspect of explorative, social play that contrasts significantly with Lego and all other construction toys. Some have argued that although the game is about creation, the underlying theme is one of “secret knowledge” and the pursuit of it.132 Others have described knowledge as “social currency” in the game133. Players have to discover how to actually play Minecraft by not only experimenting individually, but also seeking help from friends at school and in a huge online community. The breadth of resources is vast, but given that the player has to look them out for themselves, they can choose the level of instruction and the end-

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Figure 28. Large red crosses warn the child from considering opening two bags at once, lest the pieces become muddled in the instructions for Lego Set 7685 - Dozer - part of the City Construction range 129. A. J. Artemel, ‘Is LEGO Architecture Stifling Our Creativity?’, Architizer, 28 June 2013, http:// architizer.com/blog/is-lego-architecture-stiflingour-creativity/ 130. Thompson, ‘The Minecraft Generation’.

131. Minecraft YouTube channels attract huge followings, such as ‘The Diamond Minecraft’ which has more than 8 billion video views ‘YouTube Top 100 Most Subscribed Channels List - Top by Subscribers’, accessed 2 October 2016, http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-mostsubscribed-channels. 132. Robin Sloan, ‘The Secret of Minecraft and Its Challenge to the Rest of Us’, Medium, 21 July 2014, https://medium.com/message/the-secretof-minecraft-97dfacb05a3c. 133. Associate Professor of Digital Media, Michael Dezuanni is quoted by Thompson, ‘The Minecraft Generation’.

Figure 29. An example of the colossal scale of creation possible in Minecraft using the unlimited resources and collaborative production

point they deliver; one can find tutorials for the most basic processes to crafting incredibly complex structures. Robin Sloan argues that one can look at Minecraft not just as a simple game but the wider network of books, videos, tutorials and mods that the game sits within.134 It seems that Minecraft fits into the trend of “solitary to networked geographies of play”135 proposed by Lauwaert. Although today the contrast between Minecraft and Lego in how the toy offers instruction is enormous, interestingly, Lego did not have detailed instructions in their sets until the 1970s136. In inadvertently providing a similar play environment to that of those open-ended kits of Lego, Minecraft’s success appears to be partially be a result of not seeking to dictate to its audience how it can be used.137

“LEGO pieces on steroids”138 A key attraction of construction play within Minecraft and other virtual toys is the possibility of unlimited resources. A computer world can be infinite unless limits are programmed in; Minecraft’s virtual world endlessly generates itself to create an environment too large for a player ever to explore. And in the creator mode, one can have an unlimited supply of components to build with. With Lego, or any physical construction toy, the player is constantly constrained by the number and assortment of pieces they have in their possession. The scope of creations is severely restricted but it can result in the child having to find new design solutions or creatively deploy bricks in an unorthodox fashion. In his book with Jon Goodbun, Michael Klein and Andreas Rumpfhuber, Jeremy Till discusses the notion that all design is as a result of scarcity and the constraints of limited resources are necessary for its production. If so, the limitless world of creator mode in Minecraft could be argued to provide an infinite but unsuccessful environment in which to create. However, Till argues that scarcity itself is designed – quite

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Figure 30. Some of millions of Minecraft related videos available on Youtube 134. Sloan, ‘The Secret of Minecraft and Its Challenge to the Rest of Us’. 135. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. p45. 136. Ibid. 137. Jason Schreier argues that Minecraft is “a game that respects players’ intelligence, and for that reason it’s become a sensation”, ‘Minecraft Sells 10,000 Copies A Day’, Kotaku UK, 14 April 2016, http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/04/14/ minecraft-sells-10000-copies-a-day. 138. Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson, Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and the Game That Changed Everything (Random House, 2014). p34.

139. Jon Goodbun et al., The Design of Scarcity (Strelka Press, 2014).

explicitly in the case of computer games where artificial limits are imposed. He suggests that the shift from analogue to digital is part of the means to deliver a post-scarcity world.139 Therefore, Minecraft might be a perfect embodiment of a shifting approach to design and resources. It is also interesting that despite the staggering scale of Minecraft, the player navigates and creates in it from a single-person viewpoint. This human perspective grounds the player – literally if ‘flight mode’ is not enabled – forcing them to explore it at a fundamentally understandable and relatable level.

140. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Taylor & Francis, 1949). p8.

141. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. 142. Zinguer, ‘Architecture in Play’.

“Play is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life. It is rather stepping out of ‘real’ life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own”140 Another of the key differences between Lego and Minecraft is in the environment that play and construction occurs. Lego’s construction relies on the imagination of the child to give life to the physical models. The creations of the child may be augmented by their flights of fancy, but they still are very much rooted to the real world – the pieces obey the fundamental laws that define the world. Inventive structures are still constrained by the mechanics of gravity and friction, as with all physical construction toys. This characteristic is often cited as part of the educational benefits of the toy, and links back all the way to Froebel’s blocks141. Children are experiencing a simplified, sanitised and small-scale version of reality, still obeying its laws142. By stacking and connecting the pieces in this setting, they can learn about the nature of these principles, how to exploit them and their limitations.

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Figure 31. The gravity-defying elements crafted in a Minecraft world

143. There are a couple of exceptions to this as explained in ‘Gravity’, Minecraft Wiki, accessed 2 October 2016, http://minecraft.wikia.com/wiki/ Gravity.

144. Jolyon Jenkins, ‘Should Parents Ever Worry about Minecraft?’, BBC News, accessed 23 February 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ magazine-32051153. 145. “Minecraft is at that psychological cusp, that liminal zone between imagination and reality” argues Stuart, ‘Minecraft at 33 Million Users – a Personal Story’. 146. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and History of ‘Load Construction Play’. 147.the Ulrich Götz, and Support: Architectural Realism in Video Games’, in Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level (Springer Science & Business Media, 2007).

In contrast, construction play in Minecraft takes place in a world entirely of its own; a randomly generated and infinite virtual environment that is an abstracted representation of reality. Time is hugely accelerated from the real world; a Minecraft ‘day’ lasts only 20 minutes. Most notably from a construction perspective is the relationship to gravity, or its absence. Although within the virtual world of Minecraft, gravity is a mechanic that has been programmed in, it only acts upon certain elements. The player is constrained by it as they navigate the world, but this can be disabled in some modes. As for the blocks themselves, they do not at all, remaining hovering in the air even if all adjacent blocks are removed143. This fundamental characteristic results in a profoundly different construction play environment, where elements can exist in suspended isolation with no direct interaction to the others. The total immersion Minecraft offers can be seen as both a positive and negative in terms of its benefits to creativity. By situating the player in an entirely separate environment that only loosely resembles reality, one could argue that it performs the role traditionally left to imagination when playing in the real world. Some have cited fears of a disconnect from real life that the game could create.144 However, others have argued that Minecraft creates a world that is sufficiently flexible to be shaped to that imagination, in an environment whose rules and constraints help to structure the creative process145. The end of the twentieth century saw a trend towards greater realism within toys146, which has been mirrored in computer games. The virtual world of a computer game has no need to emulate the constraints of the real world, argues Götz, and yet designers have been aiming for representations that get ever closer to reality at the detriment of play. 147 Minecraft self-consciously bucks this trend.

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When studying the role of game-playing in learning about form, Radford evaluates the theories of Huizinga’s Homo Ludens in the context of early computer software. He suggests that the crux of games can be found in one’s “immersion in play subject to rules … a complete absorption in the activity”148. It appears that Minecraft’s unique virtual world is an enabler of this immersion, providing a milieu notably distinct from reality where creative play can occur.

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148. Antony Radford, ‘Games and Learning about Form in Architecture’, Automation in Construction 9, no. 4 (July 2000): 379–85, doi:10.1016/S0926-5805(99)00021-7. p379.

Contemporary construction toys & architecture UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE CURRENT CONSTRUCTION TOYS MAY HAVE IN SHAPING CURRENT AND FUTURE ARCHITECTURAL TREND

5.1

Building digitally TO WHAT EXTENT CAN THE INFLUENCE OF VIRTUAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS BE SEEN IN ARCHITECTURE? It is likely that it is too early to see a substantial impact of Minecraft upon completed architecture, given the timescales of construction and the age of the game. However, it appears that the influence of the game is already being felt in the world of architecture to some extent.

149. O’Connell, ‘How Minecraft Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Architects’.

150. Michael Wacht dubs worst BIM-driven creations as ‘Revitism’ in, ‘Defining a More Purposeful Architecture: A Guide to Current Architectural Trends’, ArchDaily, 9 January 2015, http://www.archdaily.com/585599/defining-amore-purposeful-architecture-a-guide-to-currentarchitectural-trends/.

Some have suggested that Minecraft can be considered as a Computer Aided Design tool, given its expansive capabilities and the manner it has already been utilised149. The accessibility of this tool therefore, is exposing large numbers of children to CAD software from an early age. Current young architects have grown up with digital play, resulting in a generation of extremely CAD-literate designers; skills that a decade back were specialist, such as proficiency with Building Information Modelling (BIM) or parametric software are becoming more and more mainstream in the profession. The proliferation of these tools, and the individuals to employ them, has been accused of creating new breeds of architecture where the CAD software has dictated the design150.

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Another area where the impact of Minecraft and other virtual games has been exhibited is as tool of citizen engagement and participation within architecture and urban planning. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in participative practices after their initial heyday in the 1960s and 70s. Increasingly a requirement for public work, new methods of participation have been explored that aim to avoid the box-ticking tokenism that many examples of it can be accused of.151 Advocates of participation have espoused the value of game-playing in the process152; as a game that provides open access worlds with little in the way of constraints, Minecraft may represent the complex, potentially conflicting, democratisation of architectural production true participation aims to foster153. Studies have suggested that Minecraft can be successful means of increasing youth interest in urban design and providing an environment to frame policy issues.154

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151. Doina Petrescu and Jeremy Till, Architecture and Participation, ed. Peter Blundell Jones, New Ed edition (New York: Routledge, 2005). 152. Henry Sanoff, Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). 153. Petrescu and Till, Architecture and Participation. 154. Fanny von Heland, Pontus Westerberg, and Marcus Nyberg, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Using Minecraft as a Citizen Participation Tool in Urban Design and Decision Makingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, accessed 3 October 2016, http://www. sustasis.net/von%20Heland%20Westerberg%20 and%20Nyberg.docx.

Figure 32. Climate Hope City, a utopian sustainable vision of city modelled by Blockworks for the Guardian newspaper

5.2 155. O’Connell, ‘How Minecraft Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Architects’. 156. The stacked boxes of BIG’s 2016 Serpentine Pavilion are dubbed “legotecture” by Laura Mark, ‘BIG’s Serpentine Pavilion Opens to the Public’, Architects’ Journal 243 (9 June 2016): 3. 157. ‘LEGO Towers by Bjarke Ingels Group’, Dezeen, 10 September 2007, http://www. dezeen.com/2007/09/10/lego-towers-by-bjarkeingels-group/. 158. ‘Bjarke Ingels Lays Foundation Brick at LEGO House’, ArchDaily, 19 August 2014, http:// www.archdaily.com/539149/bjarke-ingels-laysfoundation-brick-at-lego-house/.

Minecraft architecture HOW CAN VIRTUAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS INFLUENCE ARCHITECTURE IN THE FUTURE? The impact of Minecraft and other virtual construction toys upon the architecture of tomorrow is likely to be diverse and potentially far-reaching. As with older toys discussed earlier, the complex interrelationships are likely to be heavily entwined and direct causal links challenging to untangle from broader societal themes. However, some overarching themes can be expected to manifest themselves in architectural design and production. The focus of the limited discourse upon Minecraft’s effect upon architecture can often be a potentially reductive focus upon mere visual similarity.155 It is true that Minecraft has a unique visual language of block-like and abstracted forms. However, whether architecture will adopt an aesthetic of pixilation seems unlikely; as past examples have illustrated, the impact of construction is usually far less tangible. That said, there are parallels between recurring themes of modular stacks in buildings by BIG and the system of construction of Lego156 – one explicitly drawn out by the firm themselves.157 158

Figure 33. Serpentine Pavilion, BIG (2014) Figure 34. Lego House, BIG (under construction)

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Cultural theorist and architectural historian Charles Jencks has proposed that there are clear links between the postmodernism movement and Lego. He highlights the simplicity of form, colour and volumetric shapes of the archetypal Po-Mo building, No. 1 Poultry by James Stirling, as owing a clear debt to Lego.159 Tom Dyckhoff suggests that intentionally or not, the underlying themes of playfulness and accessibility in postmodernism – “reducing buildings to a language everyone could understand”160 – was effectively mimicking the functionality of Lego.

Figure 35. No 1 Poultry, James Stirling (1985) 159. ‘Lego - The Building Blocks of Architecture’. 160. Ibid. 13.44’-14.00’

Figure 36. The homepage of BIG

With past years having seen a return to the themes of modernist architecture161, it is possible that Minecraft will contribute to a resurgence in popularity of postmodernism, the historical response to modernism. The heralded accessible nature of Minecraft ties in with ambitions in the work of practices such as BIG trends towards a more understandable architecture. Wacht characterises the architecture of ‘Diagramism’, where the building is a literal embodiment of the underlying key concept, citing BIG as well as MVRDV and MADA s.p.a.m.162 BIG’s website is a clear example of this – each project is reduced down to a single icon that seeks to summarise the entire project163.

161. Owen Hatherley, ‘London’s New Typology: The Tasteful Modernist Non-Dom Investment’, Dezeen, 21 August 2014, http://www.dezeen. com/2014/08/21/owen-hatherley-londonhousing-typology-yuppie-flats-tasteful-modernistinvestment/.

162. Wacht, ‘Defining a More Purposeful Architecture’. 163. ‘BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group’, accessed 26 September 2016, http://www.big.dk/#projects.

The system of construction in Minecraft may also hint at developments in architecture. Individual blocks are placed into virtual space, with

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164. ‘Chinese Company 3D Prints 10 Houses in a Day with Construction Waste’, Dezeen, 24 April 2014, http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/24/ chinese-company-3d-prints-buildingsconstruction-waste/.

Figure 37. Still from Future of Storytelling (2014) 165. Architect Bjarke Ingels, of BIG, argues that Minecraft is an empowering tool that enables people to transform their own environments in, Future of StoryTelling, Worldcraft.

166. Lauwaert, The Place of Play. p45. 167. O’Connell, ‘How Minecraft Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Architects’.

no structural connections to any of the blocks around them. At first glance this appears to bear no resemblance to the reality of creating buildings. However, it could be viewed as simply a type of additive construction, akin to 3D printing. In the last few years, significant progress has been made in the use of 3D printing as a viable building technique, with the first houses unveiled in 2014.164 Such techniques are hoped to minimise waste substantially. Just as Froebel’s blocks displayed the basic characteristics of loadbearing masonry, and Meccano the relationship of column to girder, Minecraft may be reflecting fundamental changes in how structure is conceived and created; a new way of composing form, freed from the confines of existing structural languages.

“If geography is the documentation of the world as it is, architecture must become ‘worldcraft’ – the craft of making our world – where our knowledge and technology doesn’t limit us but rather enables us to turn surreal dreams into inhabitable space, to turn fiction into fact”165 One of the keys aspects of Minecraft is how its virtual structure enables collaborative production. Children can contribute to the same models in real time, situated at opposite sides of the planet. Large scale creations are dependent upon multiple individuals working together to craft in unison. In many ways this can be seen as the endpoint to Lauwaert’s proposal of a move from “solitary to networked geographies of play” since the mid twentieth century.166 In this aspect, Minecraft is in essence performing as a piece of BIM software.167 A generation of children will have grown up accustomed to communicating, sharing and building together online, and seem

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destined to continue to work in an ever more collaborative design environment. Examples of the creative potential of Minecraft in the media typically focus upon the huge scale of constructions possible, usually built in the constraint-free creator mode168. However, there is an argument that designing in such a limitless environment is a paradoxically less creative activity. The lack of parameters or constraints mean that building in it is purely is a form-shaping exercise, free from the limits that usually have to be worked with in successful design. In this aspect, one could argue that the survival mode provides a design environment more conducive to developing the problemsolving skills required in design. Here players are forced to consider the threats of monsters, their limited initial resources and the environment they find themselves thrust into. It is by gathering resources, trading goods and crafting a shelter that they can survive, a situation that has clear parallels with the orthodox view of the architectural process. Players must develop creative solutions to the limits of their resources; in this mode, the architecture of necessity rather than design as a simply visual exercise is fostered. As such, it bears far greater similarity to the current and historical reality of architectural practice. On the other hand, Till has argued that the framing of design as ‘the solution’ to ‘the problem’ is a unsatisfactory and outdated approach169; a future, post-scarcity world perhaps more closely relates to Minecraft’s creator mode. Others have suggested that architecture has yet to catch up with developments in the digital world, and consider its creation from a systems approach. In proposing that architecture needs to move away from considering the production of form from a ‘monolithic’ viewpoint, Hovestadt suggests that architects must ‘breed’ a system from autonomous, flexible elements. He argues that design of buildings must address the reality of world where the division of the real and the virtual no longer exists. 170 Tools such as Block’hood – taking clear inspiration from Minecraft – consider architectural and urban design through the language of symbiotic systems;

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168. Nicolás Valencia, ‘15 Incredible Architectural Feats Made in Minecraft’, trans. Matthew Valletta, ArchDaily, 15 February 2016, http://www.archdaily.com/781721/15-incrediblearchitectural-feats-made-in-minecraft.

169. Goodbun et al., The Design of Scarcity.

170. Ludger Hovestadt, ‘Why Games for Architecture?’, in Space Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level (Springer Science & Business Media, 2007).

Figure 38. Simulated neighbourhood constructed in Blockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;hood, Plethora Project (2016)

ecological dependencies are virtually visualised and used as means of architectural production. 171 It seems that this approach to design will become more prevalent in the future, and virtual construction toys may help cultivate such philosophies. The impact that developments in the realm of virtual toys has had upon CAD has already been highlighted.172 Therefore, if games like Minecraft are either influencing the tools of architectural production and representation, or taking on those roles directly themselves, it appears inevitable that traces of its characteristics will be reflected in architecture. For if Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture was one of “the straight line technique of T-square and triangle”173, to quote the man himself, then the architecture of the future may be of the three dimensional grid of the CAD program.

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171. ‘Video Games Will Become Tools to Solve Architecture Challenges’, Dezeen, 7 March 2016, http://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/07/ jose-sanchez-block-hood-video-game-tools-solveglobal-challenges-architecture/. 172. Maria Bostenaru Dan, ‘Architecture and Urban Planning (3D) Representation in Games and Toys’, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Architectural Research, 2012.

173. Frank Lloyd Wright quoted by MacCormac, ‘The Anatomy of Wright’s Aesthetic’. p137.

5.3 174. Fanning and Mir, ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’.

175. Götz, ‘Load and Support: Architectural Realism in Video Games’.

176. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child.

177. Owens, Minecraft.

The lineage of Froebel TO WHAT EXTENT ARE THERE PARALLELS WITH MINECRAFT AND EARLY CONSTRUCTION TOYS? Many have suggested that Minecraft resembles the earlier sets of Lego, with open-ended creativity at its heart174. However, in many ways it has greater parallels with the genesis of construction toys and Froebel’s blocks. Minecraft displays a shift in the visual aesthetic of play, with a language of simplified, ‘pixelated’ blocks and forms that contrasts with search for realism in contemporary virtual and physical construction toys. The success of Minecraft appears to be vindication for those that have argued that the pursuit of creating computer games that mimic reality ever more accurately is counter-productive and unconducive to actually ‘playing’ the game.175 It is interesting how similar these arguments are to those of post war pedagogues, who argued for a return to abstraction for a better creative toy after years of increasingly exact representation.176 It could be argued that the evolution of the construction toy displays a cycle of abstraction, where the prevalence of simplified forms waxes and wanes with the generations. In this context, Minecraft could represent a return to the underlying visual principles of Froebel. However, whilst its explicit geometry may have parallels with those of the original gifts, it is questionable whether this had a such a deliberate pedagogical intent behind it. Indeed, creators have distanced themselves from the notion that they set out to create an ‘educational toy’.177

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It may be that the language of crystallisation that Minecraft shares with Froebel’s blocks was not consciously implemented, but the lineage to which Minecraft belongs owes a great deal to the principles set out by Froebel and other early education reformers. Pestalozzi’s ambitions to “break down the complexity of nature into its constituent forms for the pupil”178, setting the square as the foundation of it all, can be seen in Minecraft’s language of the grid. Similar parallels with the ideas first proposed by Froebel can be drawn out in the characteristic of unlocking childhood creativity many have argued is displayed in Minecraft. The largely unconstrained play, in environments unbound from the structures of reality, celebrates learning through free-form exploration. The championing of child art by pedagogues around the turn of the twentieth century had a similar focus. Artists such as Klee promoted and sought to foster the inherent “will to art”179 within the creative child. It could be said that Minecraft provides the contemporary canvas for this.

178. Clive Ashwin, Drawing and Education in German-Speaking Europe, 1800-1900, vol. 7 (UMI Research Press Internat., 1981). p16.

179. R. E. Krauss, The Originality of the AvantGarde and Other Modernist Myths, New Ed edition (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986). p56.

In his assessment of Froebel’s influence upon Frank Lloyd Wright, Kaufmann posits that highlighting the gifts’ impact at a purely visual level is an overly reductive approach, and instead it is their role as facilitators of innate artistic sensibilities that is most noteworthy. Similarly, Minecraft’s greatest impact is likely to be manifested not in direct mimicry of its forms in architecture but in an audience that has been able to explore the creativity of the production and manipulation of space, albeit virtually.

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5.4

Analogue toys in a digital world HOW MUCH OF A ROLE WILL PHYSICAL CONSTRUCTION TOYS PLAY IN THE FUTURE? It is clear that virtual construction toys such as Minecraft offer huge potential and new avenues for childhood exploration of form and architecture. As such one could be forgiven for thinking that there will be extremely limited demand or necessity for the physical toys of the past. However, whilst they may become less prevalent, it appears that they offer numerous, critically important capabilities that are not, and may never be, fully performed by digital playthings alone.

180. Dudek, Kindergarten Architecture. p56.

181. O’Connell, ‘How Minecraft Is Inspiring the Next Generation of Young Architects’.

The value of the inherent tactility of the physical toys cannot be underestimated. From an educational perspective, many of the early construction toys sought to associate form with feeling – “the sense of touch was an intrinsic factor”180 in Montessori’s pioneering work. Froebel’s system and its successors were dependent upon the physicality of the objects used to create forms, a physicality not present in the virtual sphere. Although there is evidence of children of kindergarten age playing with Minecraft181, it seems that at an early stage in development tactile interactions are paramount for gaining true understanding of the relationship between form and space.

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Virtual construction cannot yet achieve anything close to the tangibility of architecture. Whilst those maple blocks in the fingers of Frank Lloyd Wright had a haptic connection to the process of sculpting space, currently Minecraft is accessed through the medium of mouse and computer screen.182 Heathcote quotes Norman Foster, who suggests that even dealing with the most computer-numerate individuals in the world in Silicon Valley – young people who have grown up in the digital era – they rely on analogue models as much as ever.183 Perhaps the clearest indication of the enduring appeal of physical toys can be seen in the success of Lego Minecraft sets.184 Clearly there remains a demand, in this case specifically amongst those who use digital construction toys, for analogue play. However, it is possible that as technology continues to develop, the virtual may move towards ever closer representations of reality. Already photorealistic computer generated images are widespread in architectural practice, with some almost indistinguishable from conventional photography. The rate of advancement is extremely rapid, and the next significant frontier appears to be that of virtual reality, a burgeoning sector in architecture185 and gaming186. For Huizinga, play was dependent on total immersion187; it appears that technology may be facilitating this. One could argue that as the virtual becomes more immersive, inhabitable, even tangible, it is conceivable that it will eventually supersede the physical almost entirely. However, it seems more apposite to predict a world – and thus creative play environments – that see both the physical and the virtual, digital and analogue, viewed ever less as distinct entities but inseparable and intertwined.

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182. Mobile and Xbox versions of the game also exist 183. Heathcote, ‘Toytown and the City’. 184. Keith Stuart, ‘Minecraft Lego Sets The Cave and The Farm Revealed’, The Guardian, 18 August 2014, sec. Technology, http://www. theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/18/ minecraft-lego-sets-cave-farm.

Figure 39. ‘Digital Lego’ made analogue: Lego Set 21113 - The Cave - Lego Minecraft range (2014) 185. ‘Virtual Reality Will Allow Architects to “Change the World like a God”’, Dezeen, 21 July 2015, http://www.dezeen.com/2015/07/21/ movie-virtual-reality-oculus-rift-allow-architectschange-world-like-god-olivier-demangel/. 186. Keith Stuart, ‘Sony Announces October Release for PlayStation Virtual Reality Headset’, The Guardian, 15 March 2016, sec. Technology, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/ mar/15/sony-october-playstation-vr-virtualreality-headset. 187. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture.

Conclusion & bibliography

6.1

Conclusion It seems clear that creative play is a vital part of childhood learning, fostering artistic abilities as well as fundamental understandings of relationships between space and form, light and shadow. Since the early forays into pedagogy, construction toys have been identified as having a key role in facilitating this, and the tradition of them continues to the present day in forms both physical and virtual. This nature of construction play means it is inherently connected to architecture; both are primarily concerned with the creation of buildings and structures. Toys exhibit numerous characteristics of the prevailing trends and ideas of their era, especially those prevalent in architecture. The role some architects have played as toy designers has heightened this osmosis of contemporaneous concepts into playthings. It also is apparent that there is a degree of cross-pollination, with toys influencing architecture perhaps as much as architecture has influenced toys. Indeed, although hard to directly quantify its extent, it seems highly unlikely that the medium of creative play at young ages does not lead to a degree of impact on the work of future architects. Sometimes this is manifested is striking visual similarities, such as Meccano and High Tech architecture, where links are unmistakably evident and highlighted by the designers themselves.

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However, the influence can also be felt in less tangible ways, at a more subconscious level that the architect may not even be aware of. Notions of geometric relationships, modularity and visual abstraction can all be introduced by construction toys. There is a persuasive case that such themes subsequently expressed in later architecture can be traced back to the play of their creators. Recent developments have dramatically altered the landscape of childhood play. Physical block-based toys such as Lego remain popular, but have also been challenged by the arrival of virtual games such as Minecraft that maintain elements of construction alongside a breadth of additional features and potentially greater scope. Although it seems evident that Minecraft belongs to the lineage of block building toys dominated by Lego in the late twentieth century, it offers a fundamentally unique environment and different capabilities to these. Minecraft is sometimes dismissed as providing a fantastical world whose inconsistent representation of gravity limits its effectiveness as a means to learn about creating structures in reality. However, it is better seen as a reflection of wider shifts in how space is visualised, shaped and even constructed. It is likely to have the same reciprocal relationship with architecture that has been displayed with earlier

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construction toys â&#x20AC;&#x201C; influencing and influenced by. This has already been exhibited to an extent in the parallels between the game and computer aided design software, as well as its use as a tool for community consultation and participation. Similar to historic toys, many of its impacts may not become clear until some period hence. Nevertheless, examining the underlying principles of the construction play that Minecraft enables indicates the direction of its future influence. Undoubtedly there will be some buildings that share its rigidly geometric, blocky aesthetic. Others may reflect its abstracted, simplified visual language. Some may even mimic the gravity-defying, suspended cubes of the Minecraft worlds. However, as with prior examples, to suggest purely such a one-dimensional effect is overly reductive. The system of construction hints at a move towards a more widespread use of additive techniques such as 3D printing. The complex resource management and programmable elements point towards greater prevalence of a system-based approach to architectural design. And the virtual cloud-based process of building suggests a future of ever more collaborative means of production and design in architecture.

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All this does not mean that there remains no place for traditional, physical construction toys. Far from it, as their intrinsic tactility remains paramount in learning about the composition of form, especially at a young age. However, emerging technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality are likely to see the boundaries between the worlds of digital and analogue blur, dramatically changing the landscape of architecture once more. How this will affect the nature of creatively building in play is currently uncertain. What is clear is that the desire and necessity for construction toys will endure.

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6.2

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Casey, Beth M., Nicole Andrews, Holly Schindler, Joanne E. Kersh, Alexandra Samper, and Juanita Copley. ‘The Development of Spatial Skills Through Interventions Involving Block Building Activities’. Cognition and Instruction 26, no. 3 (8 July 2008): 269–309. doi:10.1080/07370000802177177. ‘Chinese Company 3D Prints 10 Houses in a Day with Construction Waste’. Dezeen, 24 April 2014. http://www.dezeen. com/2014/04/24/chinese-company-3d-prints-buildingsconstruction-waste/. Davidson, Jacob. ‘Lego Is Now The Largest Toy Company In The World’. Time, 4 September 2014. http://time.com/ money/3268065/lego-largest-toy-company-mattel/. Davies, Colin. High Tech Architecture. Rizzoli International Publications, Incorporated, 1988. Dudek, Mark. Kindergarten Architecture. Taylor & Francis, 2014. Edgecombe, Graham. ‘Minecraft ID List’. Accessed 28 September 2016. http://minecraft-ids.grahamedgecombe.com/. Fanning, Colin, and Rebecca Mir. ‘Teaching Tools: Progressive Pedagogy and the History of Construction Play’. In Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community and Possibilities. McFarland, 2014. Fineberg, Jonathan, ed. Discovering Child Art: Essays on Childhood,

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