Concave-Convex 榫卯积木 by Shanghai Art and Design Academy

Concave-Convex 榫卯积木 by Shanghai Art and Design Academy is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2023 A' Design Award 銅獎 in 玩具、遊戲及消閒產品設計 Competition Category.

銅玩具· 2023

Concave-Convex 榫卯积木

by Shanghai Art and Design Academy

Client: Shanghai Art and Design Academy

A' Design Award 銅獎 Winner in 玩具 Category

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Colors

The Design

About Concave-Convex 榫卯积木

「凹凸」係一套專為幼童設計嘅木製積木。呢套積木共有211件,取材自中國傳統嘅榫卯結構,簡化成30種接合類型,例如方形燕尾榫同T形榫。榫頭採用深色胡桃木製成,卯眼就用淺色山毛櫸木,令兩個部件可以透過顏色分辨出嚟。積木由木工機械雕刻,再經人手打磨完成。整套設計分為三個難度級別,適合18個月大到六歲以上嘅兒童遊玩,由單一榫卯配對逐步進階到搭建大型場景。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銅獎

Concave-Convex 榫卯积木是 A' Design Award 銅獎得主，這是授予以創造力、獨創性和敏銳見長的傑出設計的極具聲望的認可。銅獎得主是技藝嫻熟、創意驚人的作品，印證了其設計師豐富的經驗、想像力與機智。預計Concave-Convex 榫卯积木將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的物品，兼具顯著的專業性與創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銅獎的設計融入藝術、科學、設計和技術領域的最佳實踐，並因注重細節而出類拔萃。Concave-Convex 榫卯积木出色地滿足需求，觸動渴望，迷住情感，並吸引好奇心。

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