PlayNook is a single piece of cardboard that is cut and folded into a versatile and dynamic object that provides multiple backdrops for play and imagination. Its ease of assembly allows the act of putting it together to be a family activity.

PlayNook is designed to set the scene for play. By opening it up, it becomes an intimate space divider where a child can sit in and read a book in privacy. Fold it around itself and it becomes a dollhouse as an architectural and spatial setting for toys. Flip it down and it is a system of tunnels and ramps for toy cars. Finally, PlayNook can be folded flat in order to be stowed away until the next play time.

The perforations on its sides transform from irregular windows for the toys in the dollhouse, to peeking holes for tiny humans in the nook. The adaptability of PlayNook is also in its ability to perform on various scales allowing it to be played with as well as played in.

Taking its fold-ability as a strategy of construction, PlayNook lends agency to its tiny human users and involves them in the process of making and creating as a part of playing. Suggestions of possible iterations of PlayNook are offered, but users are encouraged to create their own variations. PlayNook does not only embrace the malleable quality of the cardboard, but it also welcomes its neutrality to be a blank slate that invites kids to personalize and decorate their own units.

• Program: Play Screen
• Year: 2020
• Category: Furniture
• Team: Dana Muhsen, Omar Bacho