The art of playful design and why we need it more than ever

Trends, algorithm-driven feeds and the same small handful of visual inspirations shape much of today’s contemporary design. 

With the same ideas constantly repeated and reworked, commercial spaces operating in similar industries are starting to blur together. 

So what’s the alternative? 

Choose play, of course. 

But here’s the nuance. It’s easy to confuse playful design with playful interactions (slides, swings, soft-play corners, things you can literally ‘do’ in a space) when in fact, a space can be playful without having anything to play with or on at all. 

Playful design isn’t an add-on or a themed corner; it’s a moment of surprise, an unexpected distraction or a smile when you notice something hidden. 

At House of Kin, we believe that playful design is at its best when, instead of being bolted on, it’s layered throughout a space, so the way a room is experienced becomes playful. 

The difference between superficial and layered playfulness in design

Properly playful spaces immediately grab you on a multi-sensory level. 

Walking into a giant pink castle or a pirate ship has its place, but it’s more playful-punch-in-the-face than how we at House of Kin like to see colour, shapes and texture woven into a space. 

Layered playfulness often comes down to granular design decisions about how the place makes you feel. 

That could be as subtle as using rippled effect materials at very specific points, or opting for big curved surfaces - it's the tiny, considered details that make things subconsciously aesthetically pleasing.

Imagine walking into a seemingly ‘normal’ reception area, where you don't notice anything unusual at first, but then you spot a little face smiling out of the wallpaper. And then you discover a partially hidden ball drop or a marble run that moves your eye across the space. The room becomes playful with a sense of fun and liveliness rather than an obvious "this way for fun" signpost. 

Image: Kazumasa Yamashita, The Face House

A layered, playful design has personality traits that are lighthearted, mischievous, or meant to entertain, whereas a superficial playful design is like a costume. It might look the part from the outside, but there's nothing underneath it that makes you feel anything. 

Should modern architecture and playful design co-exist?

In her book Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives, Sarah Goldhagen writes: "Experiments have shown that humans prefer… buildings with ornament and places with texture and variety." 

But you’ll notice in modern architecture that a lot of it's very straight, glassy, or heavily leaning toward huge metal structures rather than the ornament and texture that we know humans respond to. 

We've lost all the beautiful curves of the 1800s, where even small windows had beautiful details: a little arch, a pillar, a patterned curve - those kinds of things that are inherently and intentionally playful. They make you notice and feel, even if it’s on a purely subconscious level. 

When it comes to defining playful design, it's about the intricate details in a space that challenge your senses, draw you in, and reward your curiosity. 

If something about a building catches your attention, like an unexpected shape, a detail that only reveals itself when you look closer, or something that makes you smile before you've even walked in - that's playful design.

What makes for a great playful space?

The traditional idea of a playful space tends to focus on primary colours, rounded forms, chunky shapes, soft materials and bouncy typography. This specific aesthetic signals fun through appearance, but not always through experience.

Whereas playfulness, as a design concept, is more about behaviour and feeling as a whole experience. 

It's a quality of the interaction that invites curiosity, rewards exploration, and feels light rather than serious because it carries a sense of wit or surprise. 

Sure, it can be the slide-and-swing-n-soft-play side of things, but that’s a limited view of how far you can push those playful boundaries. 

Why businesses should choose playful design for a more memorable space  

James recently stayed at a hotel where the reception featured a shuffleboard game. It was a small, budget-friendly, and thoughtful addition to a space usually reserved for queuing, waiting, complaining, boredom, and eagerness to move on, which transformed the entire experience for guests.

The places that actively go out of their way to engage unexpectedly with the kids, bored older adults, or whoever has to put up with the admin or order for the whole family in a cafe, are carving out a USP for themselves.

And a playful USP, be it through games, tactile playthings, or just an incredible environment, makes your business memorable, recommendable and enjoyable to be in. 

Especially now that AI is making it easier than ever to lean toward the generic. Soon, things that businesses got away with before, in an effort to be bold, won't differentiate them enough to stand out at all.

Entertainment, comfort and relaxation are all things that humans love - and in non-traditional play environments like hotel reception areas or hospital waiting rooms, play makes a statement. 

Playful design in the wild

The reception of a family member’s club designed by House of Kin in Singapore is a good example of a layered, playful environment.

It's got big Yves Klein blue walls and floors - a colour that instantly screams playful because it's full of life and energetic.

Then there's a soft hanging installation at the entrance, something you can mindfully run your fingers through while you wait. 

The bespoke wallpaper has hidden faces running through it, the idea being that a bored child will find one and go, "Look, it’s got a nose!", creating another playful moment. 

Then there’s mini ball runs integrated into the overall visual landscape. 

But there are no toys in sight, and no slide coming down through the middle of it.

Image: House of Kin

These playful moments - the little eyes in the wallpaper that you don't notice at first, things on the walls that kids can spin, bright hanging fabrics, ribbed tiles that you run your hands across - produce a conceptual playfulness. It comes down to how the environment behaves rather than purely how something looks.

There's a cancer care facility in Manchester that's beautifully inspiring and playful because it doesn't look like a medical facility. It’s unexpected and goes some way to counteracting Heatherwick’s self-coined term - the blandemic, which he describes as ‘the plague of boringness in the built environment.’ 

Image: Heatherwick Studio, Maggie's Centre

It’s playful because it doesn’t feel like what we think it should. With its beautifully sculpted curves and enormous, mushroom-shaped forms growing from the floors to the tiered roofs, daylight fills the entire place. Plants are cascading everywhere! It feels like a light, playful environment, despite the lack of primary colours and playable features.

Then you have creations like those of multidisciplinary artist and designer Yinka Ilori at the other end of the spectrum. His Launderette of Dreams is a super bright space that screams, ‘Hey, you! You're here for play, you're here for a really bright, sunny, happy, playful day!’

Playful places feel different on an emotional level. People walk into a playful business and smile, because there's just a feeling about it.

Image: Yinka Ilori Studio, Launderette of Dreams

Let’s turn up the dial on playfulness 

A lot of people believe that adults aren't or don’t want to be playful. But often it's not that adults don't want to play, it's that the conditions for play have been systematically removed or made socially costly. Give people the ‘toys’, so to speak, and they play. 

In fact, psychologists studying intrinsic motivation have consistently found that play is the natural default for adults; it's interference that kills it. 

Expectation often suppresses the instinct to play, but if we remove that pressure and flip the expectation (you should play!), people engage. 

Our job as designers isn’t to remove play or inject superficial play without intent; it’s to turn the dial on play up or down based on what the space and the people using it demand. 

The cost of leaving play to chance

We know that being brave, making a statement, or doing something different is challenging. And if you’re on a tighter budget, often that means choosing an ‘off the shelf’ option, which lots of other businesses will probably have too.

The issue we see with this is that competition quickly catches up with trends. Within six months, you might all be offering the same thing in the corner of your restaurant or reception area.

There are lots of great, creative people out there who can inject play into your space - florists, mural artists, vegan taxidermists - all can weave playfulness into your brand, making it cohesive and unique to your business and operational needs.

Image: House of Kin

A professional creative will look at your space differently and figure out how to draw attention in ways you might never have seen. 

The blandemic is real, so choose play

Playful design is a considered decision to make your space feel alive to the people who move through it. It’s not a trend or a sticky, kid-centric corner. The businesses that understand this create nearly invisible moments that cause smiles. They get hands running across touch-worthy walls, and they’ll be the ones people talk about - they’ll be the spaces that people remember. 

At House of Kin, we want to see playful design layered throughout a space, so the way a room is experienced becomes entirely memorable. If that sounds like something your business needs, we’d love to chat.