Box in a Forest 
A Habitable Bridge for Everyone

Fall 2015
4th Year Architecture Studio,University of Southern California
Type: Architecture, Installation
Instructor: Laurel Broughton
Individual Work


On the contrary to the notion that both architects and buildings take themselves perhaps too seriously, the project follows the discipline: “Take your pleasure seriously.” What happens when architecture is designed as a big toy? Or can we design a toy system that is so big that it becomes architecture and can be moved, rearranged, and added to by the users? How can architecture be instrumental in creating multiple narratives for organizations? These questions will move us toward the final design, an experimental indoor/outdoor play lab.

As the studio is structured around a constructivist idea of learning through making, it begins by studying canonical constructivist toys and then designing individual modular toys which will scale into modular spatial systems, that will be employed at multiple scales to transform the toys from idea to artifact and space. The ‘learning through making’ discipline is examined first as a rigorous engagement with our topics of research and, second, as a rigorous engagement or conversation with architecture.


The Constructivist Toy

The Pink Tower consists of 10 pink wood cubes, increasing progressively in size in the algebraic series of the third tower. Children learn how to carry a cubic shape as well as develop the sense of dimension and edges.

The original knobbed cylinder blocks have four sets, with varying dimensions. The toy prepare children with a variety of activities, helps to develop visual and math skills. It can be presented in different ways, depending on the age group.

The Invented Toy

The toy borrows the idea of a tree. When children play it, the tower structure remains still while various ‘accessories’ are added on. The addition of the ‘branches’ and ‘fruits’ to the ‘tree’ requires players to think about the way of constructing a balanced structure. The toy is designed for children in 5-7 years old. The idea of the ‘tree’ as central structure and origin point of activities is created.




Forest in a Box – A Play Lab!

The ‘tree’ structure offers great potentials for the final stage of classroom space design. The final proposal is composed of two separate ecosystems on and above ground: one is the fixed ‘tree’ as vertical delivery system, the other is the primitive shape bench: while benches can be freely arranged for various usages, the dense amounts of supplies hung form another ecosystem in the air that defines the radius of activities. The moving traces and configurations of furniture reveal the often chaotic daily scenes in a kindergarten.