Tilly’s Forest
Teaching sustainable practice through play. Deconstruct to construct!
Overview
Join Tilly the Toucan on a journey of creative constructive play, learning about human impact on ecosystems and sustainable practices along the way! Tilly’s Forest is a wooden building toy that highlights the relationship between human consumption of natural resources and the resulting effect on ecosystems and the cycle of life within these environments.
Year
2019
Age
4 year and up
Designers
Ji Hyung Moon, Annie Chen
Inspiration
We are in a constant process of give and take with the natural world. Tilly helps teach kids that our actions have direct and permanent consequences on other living things. There is an irreplicable connection between animals and their habitats, and understanding the importance and beauty of this relationship is the first step in teaching sustainable mindset to kids in a thoughtful, fun and interactive way.
Can building block toys illustrate the concept of give & take?
Can empathy and perspective play a role in addressing environmental issues to children?
Building block toys such as LEGOS normally come in disassembled parts when unboxed. What if the building block toy came as a prebuilt environment in all sustainable materials?
A new take on the concept of building block toys. Deconstruct to construct!
Research: Benefits of Building Block Toys
Spatial cognitive skills: Building block toys give the opportunity to perceive spatial information, object shape and location, and mentally or physically manipulating objects in space which all involves fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills
Problem solving: children get opportunities to come up with creative solutions, hypothesize and test while experiencing gravity, elevation, and weight of different shapes. It allows them to visualize a shape they want to build and work towards finding ways to achieve their goal
Imagination & Creativity: Tilly’s Forest is an ‘open ended toy’ where children can build what they want, bringing in pretend play aspects that incorporate imagination and creativity to create a story for what they’re trying to build
Social and emotional growth: When playing with other children, they learn to take turns, share, and cooperate, allowing them to be self-reliant and develop self-esteem
Concept Development
I explored various concepts that could create scenarios that help children understand the consequences of their choices.
For example, revealing a band-aid on an animal character as they remove blocks that were originally covering their body. Animals changing colors as you take parts away from their environment.
Story Book
This is Tilly the Toucan.
We use wood to make our homes and many other things. But as we use more and more, Tilly’s home gets smaller and smaller…
Tilly lives in the rainforest.
As you build and play, think about Tilly’s forest.
Tilly loves her forest and the Earth. The Earth takes care of her and she takes care of it as well!
This is her tree home in the rainforest. She loves living here!
We can move whenever we want, but Tilly can’t abandon her egg and home.
She is hiding a secret inside her home, something very precious.
Where would she go?
To take care of animals like Tilly and her home, we need to take care of our Earth too!
Details
Manual
Packaging
Tilly’s Forest uses kraft paper tube packaging for a more sustainable material choice. Ribbons are looped through the lid and holds the toy from the bottom, allowing it to be lifted up when the lid is pulled up.
Solution
The ‘deconstruct to construct’ relationship illustrates the idea that, one must break down Tilly’s home to make something for themselves. Once enough parts from the forest are removed, Tilly’s hidden egg at the heart of the forest will be revealed. The revealing of the egg could potentially provide an opportunity for the child to make a more balanced solution to how much they decide to take away from the forest in order to not leave Tilly and her egg so exposed.
Tilly’s Forest teaches the concept of having to destroy and take away from nature in order to build something for ourselves. It highlights the necessity to make conscious decisions in order to find an ethical and balanced solution.
