Playhouse di OFFECCT

Good, high quality and fun furniture that offers opportunities for children’s own creativity have become an important product segment for Offecct. The company presented its playful Pick Up back in 2003 and its most recent product is Flower. In the spring of 2008 Offecct once again focuses on a play space for children. Young designer Anders Breitholtz was given free rein to develop a proposal that works in offices and other settings when mum and dad are busy doing other things.

The solution was developed through play. The idea behind Playhouse is that children can use a few basic components to create an endless number of versions. Two archetypal, stylised forms were created to function as the basic framework for the play furniture: the red cottage and the grey tall building. The sound-absorbent mat functions as a soft foundation for the play furniture and is coloured green and grey, like a lawn and a road. In their shapes and colours the three components are obvious symbols of the city and the countryside, with the urban skyscraper, the small country cottage, and the mat as the meeting place between the two.

Playhouse is intended for settings where it can be rather boring to be a child, such as when waiting for mum and dad at an office or car dealership.

Even if it has taken almost two years to develop Playhouse – with its apparently simple design – it is the creative process and the journey to reach the final product that Breitholtz finds to be the most interesting aspect.

“Playfulness and innovation are close to each other – there are no demands involved,” explains Anders Breitholtz. “I see products as a language and design as my way of talking.” He adds that there is an “Anders look” to everything he does, just as a writer is recognisable from his or her own texts.

Breitholtz always uses himself as the starting point of the design process, asking himself: “What do I want? What does my friend need?” With Playhouse he asked children to test the play furniture. They stacked and built with the pieces to create new structures. Playhouse certainly encourages children’s creativity and curiosity about architecture – just as Offecct’s head of design Anders Englund requested in his first letter to the designer.

“My products must be genuine – nothing trendy. As a manufacturer Offecct suits me very well because they have the same values and a similar approach,” comments Anders Breitholtz.

Cold foam with polyurethane-surface. Anthracite and red. To be delivered 2 anthracite and 3 red coloured houses together with belong carpet.

30 x 40 x H 35 cm
20 x 30 x H 60 cm