Upcoming: research period at The Canadian Centre for Architecture

I am very happy to be able to spend time at The Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal this spring. I was granted a research stipend at their Research Centre and Visiting Scholars Program. The CCA has an amazing collection of architectural information, architectural toys and construction toys. I will be working on new media and architecture, with a special focus on SketchUp, analogue construction toys and Google Earth.

Upcoming: The Place of Play

The Place of Play is based on my PhD research and will be published April 2009 by Amsterdam University Press. The book deals with the role and function of technology in the world of toys and gaming. It looks specifically at participatory cultures and the ways in which these cultures change what we play and how we play. 

On the 28th of May there will be a public presentation of the book in Amsterdam, at Spui 25. More information on that will follow in April.

Upcoming: Playing the City

The article Playing the City deals with public participation in contested suburban areas and focuses on the Slotervaart area in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The article will appear in the Journal of Urban Technologies mid-2009.

Playing outside the box

Abstract
This article deals with three major instances in the history of the LEGO Company. First, it investigates the transference from wood to plastics as the main material used in creating LEGO toys, and also the innovations in plastic molding machines that influenced the interlocking mechanism of the LEGO bricks. Second, this article deals with a rather unfortunate episode from the LEGO history, namely, the period between the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century when the LEGO Company felt the need to extend its brand image through diversifying its product range. Unfortunately, this led to a confusing, rather than a strong brand image and resulted in heavy financial losses in 2003 and 2004. Third, this article looks into recent attempts by the LEGO Company to bring the fans into the company in order to revive the LEGO brand and its products. This part focuses on Mindstorms 2.0 and Mindstorms NXT, especially, in order to illustrate the increase in user involvement in LEGO product development.

Keywords: LEGO; technological innovation; branding; product development; play; toys

Published in 2008 in History & Technology, Vol. 24, No. 3, 221-237.

Speelgoed 2.0

Interview in het NRC Handelsblad.