Abstract
To design for play is to engage with materials, whether physical, virtual, symbolic, or ephemeral. In design for play we don’t just select materials; we shape and are shaped by them. Yet within design research, we must explore how materials do play, not merely support it. This theme track invites contributions that consider materials not as passive tools, but as active collaborators in a relational field where matter, mood, meaning, affect, and politics entangle. We are interested in how materials act not only as substrates for play, but as collaborators, provocateurs, and agents in the making of play, relationships, and worlds. From the engineered to the ephemeral, the bodily to the speculative, how do materials provoke, resist, or shape play experiences? How might they open up new modes of care, speculation, or disruption? We welcome research that moves beyond anthropocentric or utilitarian notions of materiality for play. We are curious how play materials carry symbolic weight, generate affective charge, and invite sensorial or aesthetic encounters. This track invites both theoretical and practice-led research that challenges anthropocentric, functionalist, or engineering-driven views of materials. We encourage work open to radical critique and poetic inquiry, foregrounding entanglement, friction, and emergence over tidy categories. We particularly welcome perspectives from the margins of play design working across speculative design, activism, pedagogy, or adjacent fields, where materials become a site of inquiry and invention. What happens when we treat materials not only as designed for play, but as active in the crafting of different futures of play?
Keywords
Play design; materiality; speculative design; embodied research
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.236
Citation
Skovbjerg, H.M., Poulsen, M., Mattelmäki, T., Kinch, S., Daniel Shin, H., Conçalves Dutra, R., Park, E., Ravnløkke, L., and Skriver, J.A. (2026) Play Design Materials: Entangled Matter and Making, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.236
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Play Design Materials: Entangled Matter and Making
To design for play is to engage with materials, whether physical, virtual, symbolic, or ephemeral. In design for play we don’t just select materials; we shape and are shaped by them. Yet within design research, we must explore how materials do play, not merely support it. This theme track invites contributions that consider materials not as passive tools, but as active collaborators in a relational field where matter, mood, meaning, affect, and politics entangle. We are interested in how materials act not only as substrates for play, but as collaborators, provocateurs, and agents in the making of play, relationships, and worlds. From the engineered to the ephemeral, the bodily to the speculative, how do materials provoke, resist, or shape play experiences? How might they open up new modes of care, speculation, or disruption? We welcome research that moves beyond anthropocentric or utilitarian notions of materiality for play. We are curious how play materials carry symbolic weight, generate affective charge, and invite sensorial or aesthetic encounters. This track invites both theoretical and practice-led research that challenges anthropocentric, functionalist, or engineering-driven views of materials. We encourage work open to radical critique and poetic inquiry, foregrounding entanglement, friction, and emergence over tidy categories. We particularly welcome perspectives from the margins of play design working across speculative design, activism, pedagogy, or adjacent fields, where materials become a site of inquiry and invention. What happens when we treat materials not only as designed for play, but as active in the crafting of different futures of play?