Wildlings

For this year’s edition, architect Klára Koldová and designer Eduard Herrmann from the Nami nami studio created an installation titled Wildlings.

Wildlings is an experiential installation that invites visitors into a space of free, creative play. It forms a dynamic micro-world that responds to the presence of (not only) young visitors, encouraging them to build, explore, play–or simply observe in quiet contemplation.

The installation consists of a circular “forest floor” enclosed in translucent, lightweight curtains. Passing through them, the visitor enters a different world–gently separated from the noise and bustle of the outside environment. Inside, natural materials such as pine cones, branches, soil, and stones are loosely arranged, ready to be played with, rearranged, or added to. These compositions are intentionally temporary and ever-changing.

Wildlings offers a moment of pause, a slowing down of the urban rhythm, and an invitation to focused sensory experience.

The work comments on the culture of excess and overstimulation in which children’s play is often mediated by plastic toys, screens, and pre-scripted scenarios. It highlights a childhood increasingly detached from spontaneity, imagination, and contact with nature.

The circular structure is minimalist and easily transportable – made of lightweight, foldable aluminum rods, curtains, and telescopic fishing poles anchored to eight local stones. All materials inside the installation were gathered from the surrounding natural environment.

Nami nami studio creates experiential interventions for children under the label Nami Play. At the heart of each design is the concept of free play – child-led and creativity-driven – often using simple elements and natural materials. There is strength in this simplicity: a key to unlocking the magical world of children’s imagination. (And a nostalgic return to the childhoods of today’s parents, who might recall long hours spent playing in “blanket forts” under the table or arranging pebbles in the backyard.) These play spaces offer an alternative to conventional playgrounds and indoor play areas, which often rely on standardized elements with limited focus on children’s development and creativity.

Last year, the studio realized a play pavilion for the Landscape Festival and an interior installation for Designblok, Prague international design festival. Currently, their playful exhibition with an outdoor intervention can be visited at the Museum of Art and Design in Benešov, Czech Republic.