Page 55 - Designing Ways 247

Photo credit: Matter Design

utilitarian and ceremonial pressures is
crafted to inspire a state of world-building.
As a system, the glyphs are designed to be
expanded as the students develop their
own language.
“As the students fabricate their own
instruments, we will be interested to
learn whether they abandon, adapt, or
transform the language we instantiated.”
— Johanna Lobdell, Matter Design
The concept for this play-lab is to create
a space that provides a foundation to
encourage the development of a world
that need not rely on deterministic
outcomes. The more time spent with the
play-lab, the deeper the understanding,
which in turn unlocks greater discoveries
for the students and teachers to unpack.
The goal of this work is not only to impact
the education of students at The Grayson The Family of Custom Glyphs
School, but also to offer a possible re- Photo credit: Brandon Clifford
imagination of how we integrate play into
adolescent education.
“By designing this play-lab to address
the under-represented category of
adolescent play, we had to overcome
the association that the term ‘play’ has
with early childhood - one dedicated
to physical activities such as swings,
slides, or monkey bars. Adolescents
deploy their imaginations differently;
through intellectual challenges, rigorous
experiments, and world-building.
Crafting an infrastructure for young
adults to play in served as an incredibly
rewarding design challenge for us.” —
Brandon Clifford, Matter Design
The Grayson Play-Lab recently received
an AZ award for Concepts: Ideas and
Prototypes.

The Family of Custom Glyphs
Photo credit: Brandon Clifford

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