It’s been a while since my last blog post, and in that time, my thesis has taken a much more concrete shape. At its core, my research is about social anxiety and emotional tension, and how these inner states can be expressed, explored, and softened through interaction, technology, and tangible experience.
I’m interested in how design can create environments of social comfort rather than pressure. Spaces where people don’t have to perform, explain themselves, or be “good” at interacting. Instead, they can approach their emotions through doing, touching, moving, and experimenting.
Even though the topic sounds serious, play is still at the heart of it. Not play as entertainment, but play as a method. A way to interact with uncertainty, vulnerability, and anticipation in a gentle and non-judgmental way.
That’s why I thought it was a good idea to watch the episode “Cas Holman: Design for Play” from Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design. Cas Holman is a play designer who creates open-ended tools and environments for children. Watching her work again felt surprisingly close to what I’m trying to do in my own practice. She doesn’t design toys with instructions, but situations and possibilities.
One sentence from the episode really stayed with me:
“We don’t design the play, we design for the circumstances of play to arise.”
This is exactly what I’m trying to do in my thesis.
My goal is not to tell people how to feel or how to behave. It’s to design the conditions in which certain interactions and emotions can appear on their own. Cas Holman does this with wood, plastic, and other physical materials. I do it with technology, interaction, and systems. Different kinds of materials, but a similar intention.
Her work creates spaces where children feel free to explore without being judged. In my case, I’m interested in creating environments where people can engage with their own tension, vulnerability, and uncertainty, especially in relation to social anxiety. I don’t want to design “solutions” to emotions. I want to design spaces where those emotions are allowed to exist and be explored.
Even though my thesis is not about children, play is still my method. For me, play means:
- not having to be right
- not having to perform
- not having to explain yourself immediately
It’s a way to approach difficult feelings gently, through interaction rather than conversation.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
