Baller: Concept furniture for children

Relevant Keywords:

Children’s furniture, design competition, plastic, conceptual design

Design Goal:

Design a piece of furniture for children to be produced in plastic and go along with the general Hema style:  simple, colorful products, with a high quality and a low price.

Project duration:

75 hours

THE PROJECT:

The dutch shop Hema holds an annual design competition open to design students in Belgium and the Netherlands. For it’s 2005 version, the focus was on ‘Furniture for Children’.

Final Design

Hundreds of multi-colored soft foam balls are kept in a spherical bag with a transparent outer skin. The kids can lie or sit on it while they watch TV, take a nap, play video games or read books.

Since the balls are made of foam, Baller can be vacuum packed to reduce storage space. This and it’s light weight also reduce trasportation costs.The soft balls are coated wit a special, temperature sensitive ink, that changes color with the kid’s body temperature. This acts as an incentive for the children to change position and interact with the bag, keeping them constantly interested.