Froebel Blocks
Made in collaboration with Reed Gerber + Michael Hoffman
The first step in the Wescott House design studio was to work to learn the basics of how Frank Lloyd Wright would design his houses. Frank Lloyd Wright used the spatial relationships and mathematical constructs of the Froebel blocks to lay out floor plans and shape the houses we know today. We were tasked to create gift set 3, a set of eight 1” x 1” cubes which were made to a 1/1000” tolerance. Alongside the cubes, we made a box that fit the cubes perfects, with four finger-jointed sides and a sliding lid.
Once our blocks were made, we arranged them in patterns and designs based on prompted words and emotions. We were meant to create an image of the words, which was difficult with out limited amount of blocks. In the end we were also tasked to take images of nature and arrange our blocks in ways reminiscent of the patterns and constructs found in our nature photographs. This was the first step in learning how Frank Lloyd Wright went about designing and creating his buildings based on the nature around him.