Where Work Is Play: The d.school’s Play Class
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 7:15AM The Institute of Design at Stanford offers a play class “From Play to Innovation.”
Where Work Is Play: The d.school’s Play Class: [slide show]
At the Stanford d.school From Play to Innovation or “Play Class” is a design course that teaches students to integrate play into their everyday lives. Play is a natural state of behavior in all animals that involves movement, fun, and collaboration. With its large open spaces, the d.school offers an ideal environment for play. Students are able to dance, move and interact with each other which is a vital part of play. — Matt Sullivan
Play Class is taught by Brendan Boyle of IDEO, Stuart Thompson a Stanford professor of Neuroscience, Stuart Brown of the National Institute of Play, and myself, Matt Sullivan, of the Stanford Graduate Design Program. In true design thinking form, Play Class brings together students from all backgrounds ranging from philosophy to electrical engineering to business. This rich mix of backgrounds is perfect for stimulating innovation.
In Play Class, integrating movement into everyday life is a big part of what we do. Students actively investigate the human “state of play” to reach an understanding of its principle attributes and how important it is to creative thinking. The d.school offers a space where doing things different and acting silly is not only accepted, it is encouraged.
Design the Phone of the Future was an exercise where students used the design process to come up with ideas of what the future of cell phone technology would look like. The d.school offers students the ability to rapid prototype out of just about anything whether it be straws and aluminum foil to wood and vinyl to computer animation. Ideation through rapid prototyping is a big part of Play Class and the d.school.
