Abstract
Playful encounters at the intersection of familiar consumer materials and place-based natural matter are fertile terrain for speculative play world-building. This paper introduces bio-collaborative play, a design paradigm where materials and organisms are recognized as active collaborators and kin. This shifts play design away from the manipulation of objects toward a sustained dialogue with living systems. Grounded in Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) principles of pilina (reciprocal care) and kuleana (privileged responsibility), this framework reimagines speculative play as an act of communal care spanning biological scales and generational time. By treating plants, microbes, and everyday materials as co-authors, this approach analyzes how play transcending human/non-human binaries attunes players to multispecies engagement. Findings suggest that granting materials permission to grow, decay, and respond facilitates ecological connections. Ultimately, centering materials as collaborators honors the interdependence of ecological and cultural systems, broadens access to speculative futuring, and transforms play into reciprocal stewardship.
Keywords
1 more-than-human play; 2 material agency; 3 place-based design; 4 play as care
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.360
Citation
Takara, C. (2026) Play and Pilina: Reimagining Play Design Through Material Kinship and Cultural Practice, 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.2026.360
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Play and Pilina: Reimagining Play Design Through Material Kinship and Cultural Practice
Playful encounters at the intersection of familiar consumer materials and place-based natural matter are fertile terrain for speculative play world-building. This paper introduces bio-collaborative play, a design paradigm where materials and organisms are recognized as active collaborators and kin. This shifts play design away from the manipulation of objects toward a sustained dialogue with living systems. Grounded in Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) principles of pilina (reciprocal care) and kuleana (privileged responsibility), this framework reimagines speculative play as an act of communal care spanning biological scales and generational time. By treating plants, microbes, and everyday materials as co-authors, this approach analyzes how play transcending human/non-human binaries attunes players to multispecies engagement. Findings suggest that granting materials permission to grow, decay, and respond facilitates ecological connections. Ultimately, centering materials as collaborators honors the interdependence of ecological and cultural systems, broadens access to speculative futuring, and transforms play into reciprocal stewardship.