IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 18

very linear and prescriptive. They didn't encourage
what I understood one of the key values of play
to be: engaging kids in making up their own rules.
We gathered lots of educators, we looked at
playgrounds around the world, and as I watched
kids start to play together, I noticed that playdates
would start out with kids from a school playing
individually, but ultimately they would start to
try and figure out how to connect what they were
doing to what another kid was doing. For kids, play
is their work, essentially. That's how they learn
to build a sense of community and connection.
You've said that conferences like TED are sort
of "playgrounds for grown-ups"-and your office
recently designed a bespoke temporary theater
for the main TED conference. How does the design
of that project reinforce the idea of a playground?
You know, there's a reason why in theater a play
is called a play. Part of the goal is having people
together, with the audience and engaged. It's live,
demanding participation as opposed to immersive,
back-on-your-heels participation. When the TED
conference talked about moving to Vancouver
there was no theater there, so it was going to be an
empty ballroom. Chris Anderson, the curator of
18

TED, asked if I had some ideas on how to make it
an interesting space for a conference. It was one
of those 'Ah ha!' moments where things I had been
fascinated with came together: I'd done a book
called Spectacle that looked at festivals, I'd been
interested in theater ever since I was a kid,
and I've also been interested in theater's inverse
relationship between permanence and memory.
You go see a play that lasts for two and a half hours
and then it's gone, but it can lodge as a powerful
memory emotionally. I thought since there wasn't
a pre-existing conventional theater, we could
create a 1300 seat custom pop-up theater that
would be designed around the perfect five day
festival for talks.
Part of the way to make that playful, we thought,
was to have multiple ways to sit at the conference.
Sometimes you'll come to a morning session and
you might want to sit with four or five friends.
In the afternoon, you might want to sit ringside,
more like a planetarium where you're close-up and
focused on looking up at the content. Sometimes
you might want to sit in the back, where you can be
on your iPad and taking notes. Ultimately, we came
up with ten seating options. Ringside benches,

ABOVE

The 8,000 piece
pop-up TED Theater,
a bespoke "playground
for grown-ups."
Photo:
Paul Warchol
RIGHT

Rockwell's "pop-up
campus" for Cornell
Tech is a flexible kit
of parts.
Photos:
Albert Vecerka



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015

IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 201
Contents
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
Contributors
IIDA Roundtable
Designer Dialogue
Design Decoded
For Love of The Game
Designers Off Duty
Point / Counterpoint
Inspiration
Colophon
Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 201
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Cover2
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 1
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 3
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 9
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - IIDA Roundtable
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 12
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Designer Dialogue
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 18
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 20
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Design Decoded
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 24
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 26
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 28
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - For Love of The Game
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 34
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 38
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Designers Off Duty
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 44
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 46
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Point / Counterpoint
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 50
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Inspiration
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 53
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - 54
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Colophon
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2015 - Cover4
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