Bloxology: The Art and Science of thinking out of, inside, with and beyond the Blox.

Bloxes – they’re everywhere.

All over the Chapman Room and now migrating to the lobby and Kenyon.

What’s a blox? It’s a corrugated cardboard cube. It arrives in six flat pieces. When folded into a grown-up lego-like building block it’s a fascination. It’s a portmanteau word.

Web + Log = Blog

Breakfast + Lunch = Brunch

Box + Block =Blox

And now – thanks to the territorial ambitions of the Fall Festival Reimagined folks (aka everyone) – they are taking over the campus like kudzu.

Sturdy and durable, they lock together to make walls, cubicles,  forts, castles, arches,  towers, hideaways and all kinds of modular furniture. In fact – whatever your mind can make. And then deconstruct and re-make.

They are simple, cunningly imagined and full of infinite possibility. And everyone is drawn to them.

Conceived as an art project by Jef Raskin of Macintosh fame they are now manufactured by his son Aza (“To the user the interface is the product”) Raskin. He describes bloxes as:

…essentially 3D cardboard legos that ship flat, and fold up in modular building blocks that are strong enough to stand on. While they aren’t tech per se, we use them for building tables, walls, cubicles, and desks. Both Google and Mozilla have expressed interest in using them in their offices. So, this may well be the new thing in terms of agile office-space deployment. Don’t like where a wall is? Just move it! Don’t like the way it looks? Just rebuild it! They are cheaper than cubicles, and much more fun.

Bloxes – they’re too good to be left to the kids.  So – drop by and make one for yourself. And join right in.  Many minds, many hands, one bloxbuster. And don’t worry about taking something down. It may happen to yours too when it’s time for something new.

 

 

For lots more community building blox photos go the Bloxed Set on  PDS Flickr.