Tangram Space

The Tangram Space is the outcome of practice-based research conducted by Edoardo Rizzuti and Maurizio Vrenna, faculty members at the Michael Graves College of Architecture and Design. It is the concept of an innovative modular hub for conveying messages and emotions to youth, coupling learning with direct experience, and addressing children’s psycho-motor needs following the guidelines of well-known Piaget’s theory of cognitive development)

Piaget divided children’s cognitive development into four stages.

We have used the tangram – a fascinating and highly educational local game that divides a square into seven pieces – to evoke Chinese culture and tradition.

Tangram Space, overview outdoor playground 13×6 meters

The game requires cognitive effort to recombine elementary geometric shapes into an immense number of fantastic configurations. The Tangram Space uses the tangram’s potential and scalability to create a playground that works both for psycho-motor activities and as a sandbox without offering stereotypical playing scenarios(castles, starships, and other archetypes).

An ingenious proportional system of squares cut by their diagonals in
nested submultiples. The scheme of Triangles, squares, and a parallelogram
can be repeated and scaled indefinitely.

The extended possibilities of the tangram geometry in the three-dimensional space create new ludic scenarios that further push the well-known figure-based game, although Tangram Space hosts the classic figure composition activity.

With Maurizio and Ann at Mr. Zhou Factory at Toys Town in Zhejiang province

Testing a prototype made in EVA

3D printed model

Widgets

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