Deployable Play: Transformable Design

Deployable Play

Transformable Design

Team: Lauralee Williams, Liza DeAngelis, Ana Loayza

This project was developed under the Guidance of Professor Chuck Hoberman for the class ‘Transformable Design Methods.’

Team: Liza DeAngelis, Ana Loayza, Lauralee Williams

Throughout the semester students studied mechanisms theory and digital simulation of transformable structures. For our end-ofsemester project, our team of three chose to research trauma therapies, healing practices and their underlying principles for insight into applying these principles to design. We discovered that many therapies such as yoga, EMDR, TRE, and play therapies, promote healing through play and somatic engagement.

In response, our project is a transformable soothing playscape which uses a series of sectional slices, attached to a center pivot and supported by a shaft of cams to simulate wave-like undulation.

Each of these sectional slices varies from the next and creates a spatially diverse play environment that is easily stored and deployed.

Detail of Playscape sections (occupied) for mechanical simulation using Grasshopper

Playscape deployed in a park environment

GRASSHOPPER CONTROL CAM SIZE

Details of Cam shaft and affected sections