Hello! — origin

As these things go, naming Bilderhoos was pretty typical. We stormed our brains and blurted out anything that blew into them. After savagely rejecting most of each others ideas, the short-list was posted on the fridge, where they could be rolled around on the tongue for a while, and tested out on any visitors who wandered into our kitchen. 

It wasn't until David retold the story about the Scandinavian origins of the set he built twenty years before -- his boys played on a similar one during a sabbatical year in Copenhagen (where it is to this day, in a public park) --...

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...