INFORMATION
Barbara Vignaux, (she/her)
Through her lens of a product designer, Barbara uses art, installation and performance as a method of research and expression to understand and communicate her work, and is keen to collaborate concretely with actors who take
on different role within the community she is work with at the moment.
She offers product design service and a scope of visualisation services for the aim fo company and research :
- Product design
- Upstream multidisciplinary research (anthropological, historical, inspirational, including benchmark)
- Design Consultation
- Visual identity design
- Creation of inspiring visuals to immerse internal teams
Additionally she already worked for
a variety of clients from entrepreneur to major
corporations such as L’Oréal, La Monnaie de Paris (Boulle) or Prisma Media, on product design and branding questions.
Send an email to request a quote and discuss your project!
CONTACT
CONDITIONING PLAYGROUNDS
How can children's playgrounds
be designed for play,
and Not for Bureaucracy?
Thesis
Language : English, French Translation in Process
Directed : Patricia Reed, Saskia Van Stein, Yaniya Lee
Diploma Thesis Critical Inquiry Lab 2022-2023, Design Academy Eindhoven
be designed for play,
and Not for Bureaucracy?
Thesis
Language : English, French Translation in Process
Directed : Patricia Reed, Saskia Van Stein, Yaniya Lee
Diploma Thesis Critical Inquiry Lab 2022-2023, Design Academy Eindhoven
Conditioning Playgrounds investigate the concept of play in typical urban playgrounds. These playgrounds are often subject to strict rules and regulations set by governing bodies. This bureaucratic approach tends to hinder the imaginative aspect of play, as defined by Johan Huizinga. Additionally, it can instill a predisposition towards bureaucracy from a very young age. In simpler terms, the research is focused on how rules and regulations in playgrounds can limit imaginative play and influence children to adopt bureaucratic behaviors early on.
Interview by Giulia Braglia, Designer and researcher
Giulia: Your topic is playground – can you tell us a bit more about that?
Barbara: What drives me in this topic is how playgrounds are like each other in every city, both in France and the Netherlands. I was wondering, as a product designer, what it means that every kid has the same playground all over the world. That is a fact: the same playground all over the world.
G: You write about play to see the world, but at the same time you also talk about rules and bureaucracy. I was wondering how you see the relationship and the tensions that exist between rules and play?
B: Both bureaucracy and games have a lot of rules. In case of bureaucracy, they are more enclosing and forbidding, while the rules of games are meant to spark imagination – it is about changing the value of things for the time of the game. In card games for example the ace can become super powerful or be the lowest number. Another example is “the floor is lava” – I love taking this example because we are suddenly scared of touching the floor. It is a very simple example of how the rules of a game can bring us to an imaginative level; we start reimagining things without thinking about reimagining, we just do.
G: You also ask in your thesis what play is in the end? Did you find a definition that you give to play?
B: To me the definition of play is quite simple: it is a consecrated space and the duration of the game, both are known and decided by the players. Some rules that define the game are also part of the game but stop here. And where is the play? I feel like it is less in a playground. A playground has a space, but is it consecrated, is it really meaningful to the game? The duration is much more the duration of the opening of the park. That limits the play to one specific time that is not the time of the game itself. And the rules, they are everywhere in playgrounds, for example in the separation of the space.
To purchase the publication : https://www.instagram.com/p/CzrLJhBIeXo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Interview by Giulia Braglia, Designer and researcher
Giulia: Your topic is playground – can you tell us a bit more about that?
Barbara: What drives me in this topic is how playgrounds are like each other in every city, both in France and the Netherlands. I was wondering, as a product designer, what it means that every kid has the same playground all over the world. That is a fact: the same playground all over the world.
G: You write about play to see the world, but at the same time you also talk about rules and bureaucracy. I was wondering how you see the relationship and the tensions that exist between rules and play?
B: Both bureaucracy and games have a lot of rules. In case of bureaucracy, they are more enclosing and forbidding, while the rules of games are meant to spark imagination – it is about changing the value of things for the time of the game. In card games for example the ace can become super powerful or be the lowest number. Another example is “the floor is lava” – I love taking this example because we are suddenly scared of touching the floor. It is a very simple example of how the rules of a game can bring us to an imaginative level; we start reimagining things without thinking about reimagining, we just do.
G: You also ask in your thesis what play is in the end? Did you find a definition that you give to play?
B: To me the definition of play is quite simple: it is a consecrated space and the duration of the game, both are known and decided by the players. Some rules that define the game are also part of the game but stop here. And where is the play? I feel like it is less in a playground. A playground has a space, but is it consecrated, is it really meaningful to the game? The duration is much more the duration of the opening of the park. That limits the play to one specific time that is not the time of the game itself. And the rules, they are everywhere in playgrounds, for example in the separation of the space.
To purchase the publication : https://www.instagram.com/p/CzrLJhBIeXo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
