Andy emailed this a few days ago, and it is absolutely the most insanely awesome toy/furniture I have seen all year. Momoll is the creation of Nico Schweizer, a dad who was previously design director for I.D. [not i.D.] Magazine. They are knock-down, slot-together birch ply buildings--it's not enough to call them doll houses--and kitchens, though it's not enough to call them that, either. As Andy says,
They're just about the perfect combination of Creative Playthings nostalgia, “modern”-ness, function and looks. The kitchen set still leaves a lot for the kid’s imagination—it could become a DJ booth, spaceship, or Mission Control. The photos are selling it too. The photographer, Isabel Truniger, shot the last few Vitra catalogs.No kidding. I thought the doll house/tower was cool standing up, but when I saw it stacked against the wall, whoa. There was no turning back.
[The kid got a huge, wooden Noah's ark for Christmas from Grandma, and at first, I was like, "Dude. some assembly required??" But it became immediately obvious that building and taking it apart is more than half the fun for her. Now she's all, "Screw the animals, I'm building me another ark." (note: that's a paraphrase, btw.)]
But back to Momoll. As if the doll house weren't perfect enough with plexi walls, you see the set of "boy" panels [um...] screenprinted with red signs and symbols for making a fire station, a hazmat center, a garage, whatever the kid wants. It's just like how CP's old modules could be turned into a barn, a police station, you name it.
Thanks to Swiss innovation and precision, this awesome gear appeared on the market in just over a year; that's almost twice as fast as it takes most babygear innovations to go from blog to shopping basket. Momoll is available in Switzerland right now, and should be at Kid-o and Pomme in NYC soon.
Momoll [DT guestblogger Andy via birdandbanner ]
Related but different: the sweet, sweet A-Frame House by Our Children's Gorilla
Sept. 2005: Dutch asks, "Whey all the sweet, modernist doll houses at?"
Actually, I didn't see it in I.D., my wife found it scouring the Dutch blogosphere. I'll have to do a (Other Daddy-type's Baby Mama) post of all the other stuff she found.
[I stand corrected. And I should've known you'd be ahead of the print world. -ed.]
Great kitchen... that beats even the cool one Metrodad's kid got, I think...
This gives me some inspiration for my plan to build the kid a collapsable kitchen set out of super-heavy-duty corrugated cardboard... I like the minimalist design of the burners, oven door, etc. as well; my first thought was to take a photo of our actual range/oven and then color laser print it on to adhesive to stick to the cardboard, but I'm thinking some hand-painted circles would be just as cool and probably better for the imagination.