The toy, becomes nascent in the hand of a child as soon as they try to occupy themself. They take what they find around them; a stick, a sheet of paper, a scratched record and what do I know, and begins to play. However, for many years, manufacturers have evolved the toy and have gradually made it a consumable object.

The lifespan of this type of object remains the same, as soon as the child lets go, they move on to the next one, but here involving more costs; mass production, use of non-recyclable material…

What do we see in a toy store aisle? An infinity of boxes, which are mostly similar, containing within them the certain dream of a child: that of being able to play. These boxes, these displays, and even its shelves then make the toy almost inaccessible, as if you had to have it in order to be able to. Manufacturers have been able to transform something innate into something desirable.

Polytropos is a new way of designing where toys are produced consciously, responsibly, but also at a lower cost. The player becomes the designer.

About the project’s approach

In my project, I wanted the child to relearn on their own how to transform his daily life into a toy, as they could do in the past, using what surrounds them. Making the child the main actor and allowing them to understand recycling and reuse techniques on their scale, and partly with their own means.

Like a step aside from this monstrously industrial production, here, the child will create unique pieces. This project, conceived as a one-off event in the child’s life, is broken down into two workshops:

The first, accompanied by the knowledge and technical resources of a fab manager, is the demonstration of a semi-industrial production in an accessible way: transforming a PET plastic bottle into a doll object. And thus, show and explain, the transformation of a plastic bottle into printable filament, which will become the raw material. Then, the transformation of this filament into an almost finished object: the limbs of a doll.

Each limb will then be unique pieces varying according to the typology of the bottle used. Offering, once assembled, an atypical and unusual doll created from the resource brought by the child. In the second workshop, the child will find themself in front of a mountain of objects, similar to a toy shelf, but this time, these objects will be worn, dismantled, broken. These objects, commonly called waste, will become the raw material of a vast infinite universe of creative possibilities. This resource will become a playground for building toys. The goal here is to assemble these household waste using simple tools (glue, elastic, staple, string, …) and transform them into toys. This activity will allow the child to understand that on their scale, they can exploit the formal and aesthetic potential of waste, but also to become aware of their creative capacity, and that they too are capable of recycling in their own way and inventing their own toy.

About the designer

Parisian, I am a product designer who graduated from the École Supérieure de Design et Métiers d’Art d’Auvergne, part of the Lycée Polyvalent Jean Monnet in Yzeure.