designboom's PLAY Chapter: Pleasure, Play, and the Unresolved in Art and Design

Key facts

• designboom's PLAY chapter explored the idea that form might follow pleasure rather than function.
• The chapter opened with Charles and Ray Eames' invitation to 'take your pleasure seriously.'
• An exhibition at Fondazione Achille Castiglioni brought Achille Castiglioni and Bruno Munari into conversation, revealing curiosity as part of a rigorous working method.
• The 'Draw Me A Face' project translated children's drawings into makeup looks, preserving irregular lines and strange combinations.
• Sports courts, including those by Felipe Pantone, have been treated as civic canvases, changing the atmosphere of standardized environments.
• Carsten Höller's 'Two' at UCCA Beijing sends visitors through parallel color and black-and-white versions, destabilizing certainty.
• Labyrinths, from Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty to Franco Maria Ricci's bamboo maze, replace straight lines with hesitation and wrong turns.
• Cj Hendry's colossal inflatable 'Keff Joons' allowed visitors to climb through without prescribed choreography.
• Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's 'Ring' at FRAC Normandie in Caen connects swings with bells, allowing visitors to produce evolving compositions.
• The chapter concluded that play can soften the separation between designer and user, and meaning emerges through what people decide to do with spaces and things.