Inside Houzz
Meet the 2016 PlayHouzz Winners
Houzz and the AIA team up for a charitable playhouse competition. See the top 5 design concepts
Kids can get ready to set sail on a pirate ship or buzz like a bee in their very own hive. Houzz and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have announced the winners of PlayHouzz 2016. The five most popular designs will be built and donated to charities and nonprofit organizations benefiting children around the country. This year’s theme is “Adventure.”
The Explore Adventure playhouse will be built by Kole Made and displayed at the AIA convention May 19 to 21, 2016, in Philadelphia. After the convention, it will be donated to Families Forward Philadelphia.
See more of this playhouse design
See more of this playhouse design
PlayHouzz runner-up: Adam Weintraub and Mishi Hosono, Koko Architecture + Design
Project: Hachi
Hachi is a concept playhouse that lets kids mold as many adventures as their imaginations can create. The playhouse is designed to be made of plush fabric and Velcro noodles, so it can be wrapped, laid or twisted into almost any shape.
After completing his undergraduate thesis on designing playspaces for visually impaired children, architect Adam Weintraub received a postgraduate fellowship from Harvard University to study playgrounds around the world. His team was excited to design this safe alternative to a traditional playhouse.
Project: Hachi
Hachi is a concept playhouse that lets kids mold as many adventures as their imaginations can create. The playhouse is designed to be made of plush fabric and Velcro noodles, so it can be wrapped, laid or twisted into almost any shape.
After completing his undergraduate thesis on designing playspaces for visually impaired children, architect Adam Weintraub received a postgraduate fellowship from Harvard University to study playgrounds around the world. His team was excited to design this safe alternative to a traditional playhouse.
The design allows children to re-create the experience of a bee in a hive, an astronaut in a spaceship or anything else they can imagine.
Hachi is intended to engage children in the building process as they twist and turn the noodles as a team or individually. It turns the traditional model of a playhouse literally into something much more flexible.
See more of this playhouse
See more of this playhouse
PlayHouzz runner-up: Aliasghar Mofrad Boushehri
Project: Colorful Lights
Aliasghar Mofrad Boushehri, an architecture student in Iran, looked to the skies for inspiration when designing his Colorful Light playhouse. “Light is a stimulus for life,” Boushehri writes. “Sunlight and moonlight influence our mood and health.”
Boushehri’s playhouse design uses the interplay of the sun and the moon and architecture to create an exciting learning environment.
Project: Colorful Lights
Aliasghar Mofrad Boushehri, an architecture student in Iran, looked to the skies for inspiration when designing his Colorful Light playhouse. “Light is a stimulus for life,” Boushehri writes. “Sunlight and moonlight influence our mood and health.”
Boushehri’s playhouse design uses the interplay of the sun and the moon and architecture to create an exciting learning environment.
Boushehri says that to begin an adventure, one needs to move, but movement shouldn’t be limited to the physical. It should also include the movement of the eye and the mind.
The concept calls for an exterior composed of many sliding colored windows that make for a kaleidoscope of changing colors on the floor, ceilings and walls as sunlight streams in throughout the day.
The concept calls for an exterior composed of many sliding colored windows that make for a kaleidoscope of changing colors on the floor, ceilings and walls as sunlight streams in throughout the day.
The design also includes a skylight to let in the moonlight and views of the starry sky. A loft provides a perch for reading by moonlight or drifting to sleep under the stars.
See more of this playhouse
See more of this playhouse
PlayHouzz runner-up: Mashrur Dewan
Project: Love and Peace
The Love and Peace playhouse, by architect Mashrur Dewan, is intended to provide children with a new experience of thinking, creating and having fun.
Project: Love and Peace
The Love and Peace playhouse, by architect Mashrur Dewan, is intended to provide children with a new experience of thinking, creating and having fun.
Children enter the barrel-shaped playhouse through a bright heart, symbolizing the loving nature of the space. It encourages them to let their imaginations run wild as they explore various levels, grab books to read, eat snacks at a table or take a nap in the alcove bed. The design for the back of the playhouse calls for a peace sign that keeps the structure together.
Dewan says his father is also an architect, so was exposed to intricate architectural designs from an early age. “Architecture helps children grow and expand their horizons by thinking outside the box,” Dewan says. He hopes his Love and Peace playhouse will stir the same creativity in other children that his own early experiences with architecture stirred in him.
See more of this playhouse
See more of this playhouse
PlayHouzz runner-up: Brooke Martin
Project: Adventure Time
The Adventure Time playhouse, by architect Brooke Martin, is designed to encourage a new adventure around every corner.
Project: Adventure Time
The Adventure Time playhouse, by architect Brooke Martin, is designed to encourage a new adventure around every corner.
The ship-like design uses interactive features to provide ways for children to see, hear, touch, smell and taste (if they take advantage of the flower beds to grow some veggies). Chalkboard paint on various levels allows kids to set their own agendas and perhaps draw a treasure map.
When the sun goes down, the fun doesn’t have to end. The back side of the playhouse provides a flat surface on which a film for a family (or neighborhood) movie night can be projected.
See more of this playhouse
More: See all the contestants’ entries
See more of this playhouse
More: See all the contestants’ entries
Project: Explore Adventure
Edgardo Jörge-Ortiz’s winning playhouse concept and the four runner-up designs received the most “likes” from the Houzz community and were approved by the contest’s advisory board of architects and builders.
Jörge-Ortiz’s entry, Explore Adventure, calls for an interior ladder and a climbing wall to encourage children to climb to a higher level and then slide back down a firefighter’s pole to a floor covered in protective shock-absorbing material. A space at the back allows for ventilation and natural light, and has chains so kids can hang and swing around like Tarzan.
Read more about the contest