Hello! — design

Kieran and Sean spent a couple of hours at Priest Point Park yesterday. They shot some preliminary time-lapse video of the new Bilderhoos play set design. Here's a preview ...

David and I were considering how to make the roof lighter. I'd rather draw the idea than write it:

A bunch of folks and their kids came by yesterday and played with Bilderhoos.  All this kid- and parent-testing was amazing and resulted in some subtle design tweaks in the next iteration.

The next several months were spent playing with ideas and building prototypes on the back porch.  The neighbors in our six-flat were so kind about David's loud power tools and the inordinate amounts of sawdust we created.  And that's where the cool stuff happened.

A major design revision came about because of a persistent irk: The original 'popsicle' set was was limited to structures of about three feet wide, or six feet if we used long (and very heavy) pieces David nicknamed the "Three-zee". So-called because it had three notches: 

There is plenty of charm in that original set (it's on display in our shop) but one cannot...

It's so simple: rounded boards with notches, and they connect together without any tools or nails or anything. They look a lot like huge notched popsicle sticks, painted in primary colors, now faded and chipped from fifteen years of use.  When you connect them (just slide the boards together at the notches) they start to resemble things, cool things like a fortress or a playhouse, a lemonade stand or a tower.  The same boards, put together, taken apart, put together again into something completely different. 

Our product designer, David Archer, and his two...