At the intersection of toys and furniture, TONITURE borrows from classic construction sets with a critical twist: the do-it-yourself objects kids design and build with these pieces are functional as well as fun.

The Korean design studio G280 were inspired by Meccano, a kit-based building toy now almost a century old (that long predated LEGO and Erector). Meccano let children put together metal pieces then animate them with  wheels, pulleys, gears, axles, plates, girders, all connected by nuts and bolts.

The TONITURE approach follows much the same logic but at a larger scale, allowing small users to assemble creations with joints and surfaces scaled for use by kids. There are useful creations, like carts and chairs, and fun hybrid objects including rocking horses and cute animal-shaped benches. Instructions are offered for specific designs, but kids can also use the parts to build experimentally.

Kids “are able to create the relationship between themselves” and the spaces around them with these furniture toys, say the designers.”The Toniture (Toy + Furniture) project was designed to give children a extraordinary experience. It can be desks, chairs, and shelves with fixed by bolts and nuts. The children can build their own objects by stacking, joining, assembling each units.”

Reducing complexity and difficulty for would-be geodesic dome builders, this series of connective ‘Hubs‘ makes it possible for do-it-yourself types and even kids to collaborate on creating stable architecture.

Connector rods are joined at a hub that acts as a ball joint. The connector ball screws into a piece of lumber then attaches to the node. A simple structure can use materials on hand to build a working dome in a matter of minutes, all assembled by just a few people.

Building geodesic domes from metal parts can be laborious and frustrating – each piece has to be perfectly bent to join the rest, and the resulting structure is extremely heavy. The Hubs system is much cheaper than buying (or bending) a conventional dome.

Chris Jordan and Mike Paisley started work on this system a few years ago and recently made it available for purchase after a successful round of crowdfunding brought it to market. Their hope is to make dome-building a more accessible, cheap and easy process for everyone.

While wood and plastic are technically more durable, this approach lends itself to organic settings, creating wood structures that look appropriate in backyard settings and for temporary purposes or as ersatz tree houses. It is also more adaptable: cutting different lengths of wood lets users scale their dome more easily than with metal or plastic. And it is more flexible, too: the joints can bend and give, as can the wood, making the construction more forgiving.

Toy-maker Mattel has announced a 3D printer with a novel application: a way for children to make their own custom toys using a simple digital interface. The app, designed by Autodesk, is easy to learn, fast to use and simple enough even younger kids can use it. The gadget itself is priced at $300.

The ThingMaker program comes with a number of templates and basic characters that can be customized in terms of color and texture, but also allows for from-scratch designs. Each design can be saved for future editing and printing as well, in standard formats that work with or beyond the printer.

Finished objects are only one piece of the puzzle, however: the idea is to also allow for printing, connecting and assembling larger creations from smaller parts. Ball-and-socket joints can be easily included for attachment purposes, helping facilitate complex dolls and action figures. Eventually, Mattel may also facilitate combinations and accessories associated with existing branded toy lines, like Barbie and Hot Wheels.

Various safety measures have been included to keep kids safe, from an automatically-locking door to a retractable print head. For liability reasons they are listing it as a device for kids ages 13 or older.

“In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever for families to transcend the digital world and make their ideas real,” said Aslan Appleman, senior director, at Mattel. “ThingMaker pushes the boundaries of imaginative play, giving families countless ways to customize their toys and let their creativity run wild.”

Combining elements of flat-pack furniture and traditional travel trunks, this pop-up furnishing kit for urban nomads comes complete with a bed, chair, table, storage space and even a bicycle for getting around town. For temporary city dwellers who move frequently for work or fun, this solution provides an all-in-one interior design alternative to selling and rebuying furniture or paying extra for furnished rental residences.

Weighing just 132 pounds and measuring under 7 feet long, 4 feet tall and just over 1 foot wide, the kit is designed to ship easily using conventional methods, able to be strapped to a car roof, packed in a container or shipped by truck, rail, boat or plane.

Durable exterior aluminum construction, solid wood framing and careful planning help make the exterior robust and interior travel-ready. The container itself becomes part of the finished product, serving as storage, shelving and space divider all rolled into one.

Its creator, Stephan Juust, is putting his time where his money is and currently taking the Travelbox on the road while he tours around Europe.  While it remains a prototype for now, his aim with this system is to ultimatley provide an alternative to buying and selling furniture when moving. At the same time, his solution offers surprisingly high-quality construction, crafty details and nice finishes that help make furnishings feel personalized and places really feel like homes.

Positioned between robust LEGO-style systems made for easy reuse and refined architectural models that are fragile but permanent, this modeling kit is both a design tool for professionals and rendering mechanism to convey space and materiality to clients.

Using 1:48 scale, the modular pieces that come with ARCKIT are compatible with conventional imperial measurements (easy inch-to-foot conversions) but also close to 1:50 for metric purposes and compatible with scale trees, furniture and figures already sold to architectural professionals. Different textures can be overlaid on surfaces to create realistic material effects, simulating wood panels, tile floors, stone walls and more.

Easy to attach then disassemble, the pieces strike a balance between process and product, letting users reshape them as a design evolves. The physical blocks also have SketchUp-compatible digital analogs, allowing designers to shift back and forth between 3D modeling software and physical construction.

Anyone who has spent time on an architectural model knows that so much effort goes into measuring, cutting, gluing and waiting – the idea here is to reduce that frustration but also free up designers from feeling too committed to a lovingly-crafted physical model, reducing incentive to iterate. At the same time, this system is also accessible to non-professionals, both kids and adults, already being compared by many to physical toys (like LEGO) and digital games (like Minecraft).

“ARCKIT is a freeform model making system that allows you to physically explore designs and bring your architectural projects to life. The system uses interconnecting components that are completely modular and based on modern panelled building techniques, making it possible to create a diverse range of scaled structures that can be quickly assembled and endlessly modified.”