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July26,2009 - Aug2,2009 |
Furniture for young explorers
Italian design project considers kids’ development needs
By Mark Curtis
Originally Published: 2008-01-27
Furniture designs for children tend to be scaled-down versions of chairs and tables for grown-ups, but an Italian company recently commissioned world-class designers to create furniture that addressed specific childhood needs in terms of personal and social development. The result was the Me Too collection of children’s furniture, produced by Treviso-based Magis.
It’s perhaps surprising to think that the furniture in a child’s room can influence his or her development, but University of London professor Edward Melhuish, an expert in early child development and a consultant on the Me Too project, notes that design “is an important piece in the puzzle of creating an environment fit for children. Design that gives the child the opportunity to experience control of the environment as well as enabling the child to use the apparatus to fit in with fantasy play will contribute to the child’s learning, sense of mastery and overall competence.”
The Magis project was initiated by company founder Eugenio Perazza after a search for a desk suitable for his young granddaughter proved to be difficult. Perazza’s granddaughter eventually became the de facto director of the Me Too collection, with her grandfather relying on her expert opinion. “While she looked at the models,” Perazza says, “I would look at her eyes and mouth. If her eyes lit up with joy and her mouth opened in a smile, I understood that she wanted to have one, and the project was approved.”
Magis has continuing working relationships with leading furniture designers such as Konstantin Grcic, Stefano Giovannoni, and Jasper Morrison, but for the Me Too project the company went even further afield. Two of the pieces in the more than 20 product collection for two to six year olds are courtesy of Finnish design legend Eero Aarnio, famous for iconic late 1960s plastic chair designs such as the Ball chair and the hanging Bubble chair.
For the Magis project, Aarnio designed two products made of rotational moulded polyethylene – the Puppy and Trioli chairs. While the whimsical Puppy is both a chair and a play friend, the Trioli chair is an ingenious three chairs in one. It is a low seat with a high back, but can also be turned upside down to create a higher seat. Turned on its side, Trioli becomes a rocking horse. The design addresses a handful of childhood development needs – it’s an object for play, but also teaches a child about spatial relationships with its varying seat height and in turn encourages flexible, creative thinking.
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