Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises by Shanghai Art and Design Academy

Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises by Shanghai Art and Design Academy is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2023 A' Design Award de Bronze in Design de Jouet Competition Category.

BronzeJouet· 2023

Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises

by Shanghai Art and Design Academy

Client: Shanghai Art and Design Academy

A' Design Award de Bronze Winner in Jouet Category

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The Design

About Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises

Concave-Convexe est un ensemble de blocs de construction en bois destiné aux jeunes enfants. Le coffret comprend 211 pièces inspirées de la structure traditionnelle chinoise à tenons et mortaises, simplifiée en 30 types d'assemblages, tels que la queue d'aronde carrée et le tenon en T. Les tenons sont réalisés en noyer noir foncé et les mortaises en hêtre clair, afin que les deux éléments puissent être distingués par leur couleur. Les blocs sont façonnés à la machine à bois puis finis à la main. Trois niveaux de difficulté conviennent aux enfants de 18 mois à plus de six ans, depuis l'assemblage de pièces isolées jusqu'à la construction de grandes scènes.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award de Bronze

Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises est lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Bronze, une reconnaissance hautement prestigieuse décernée à des designs remarquables qui se distinguent par leur créativité, leur ingéniosité et leur sagacité. Les lauréats Bronze sont des artefacts amplement habiles et d'une créativité frappante, qui authentifient la vaste expérience, l'imagination et l'ingéniosité de leurs concepteurs. Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises est censé être un objet très estimé, admiré et chéri, remarquablement professionnel et innovant. Ce design lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Bronze intègre les meilleures pratiques de l'art, de la science, du design et de la technologie, et est excellent par son souci du détail. Concave-Convex Blocs à tenons et mortaises satisfait admirablement les besoins, touche les désirs, charme les sentiments et attire la curiosité.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: The tenon and mortise building blocks are 211 pieces in total, extracted from the traditional Chinese tenon and mortise structure and simplified into 30 simple tenons and mortises (such as square dovetail, T-shaped tenon, etc.) suitable for young children to play. The tenon and mortise are made of dark black walnut wood and light beech wood, respectively. In the process of finding partners for each tenon, children can learn the wisdom of the ancients.
Dimensions & Packaging: Package size: 220mm*195mm*280mm,
Material: Beech, Black Walnut
Tags: Traditional culture, mortise and tenon structure, educational toys, preschool children
Production Technology: Woodworking machine carving and manual detail processing
Design Challenge: This toy has high requirements for the accuracy of mortise and tenon joint clearance. The joint between mortise and tenon cannot be too loose or too tight. The manual polishing process requires more costs.
Research: Mortise and tenon, it is a main structural method of traditional Chinese architecture, furniture and other instruments. It is a connection method combining concave-convex parts on the two components. The protruding part is called tenon (or tenon); The recessed part is called mortise (or mortise, mortise). The utility model is characterized in that the nail is not used on the object, and the mortise and tenon are used to reinforce the object.
Inspiration: The project takes Luban lock as the design source, and obtains new inspiration from the mortise and tenon structure of Chinese traditional culture. Luban lock is difficult to remove and build for the children under the age of 6 .Therefore, this project attempts to design by simplifying the mortise and tenon structure, combining mortise and tenon with building blocks. The goal is to encourage children over 1 year old to complete the free assembly of simple mortise and tenon.
Project Duration: Start in September 2022 and end in March 2023，Shanghai
Operation Flow: This set of building blocks simplifies the complicated details of traditional mortise and tenon in the design scheme, and simplifies 30 kinds of mortise and tenon structures as the main building source. The design has three levels of difficulty: basic version, advanced and high-level version.
1）The basic version is aimed at children over 18-month-old, finding the corresponding mortise and tenon for each color, understanding the mortise and tenon structure, and exercising the ability to solve problems;2）Based on the cognition of the mortise and tenon structure, the advanced version is suitable for children over 3 years old to play. With the specific material form as a reference, by assembling two or more basic mortise and tenon, the combination can be built into specific forms such as butterflies, sun, rockets, chairs, etc., to enhance children's graphic imagination and creativity;3）The high-level version is based on the mortise and tenon structure, and focuses on the modular design of building specific material forms, such as the construction of micro-architecture scenes, the construction of story theme background and other complex large-scale space construction, which improves children's spatial imagination and logical reasoning ability, and is suitable for children over 6 years old to challenge.
Patents: Shanghai Art and Design Academy
Image Credits: Xiaoyang Feng
Huan Liu
Sha Yang