Toy Library — Aesthetic Exploration

Toy libraries exist in a handful of countries, mostly looking alike — well-meaning, a little grey, easy to walk past. Meanwhile the plastic toy industry runs on linear logic: buy, use, dispose. With Paula Plusa, I took this on as a master project and asked an aesthetic question for a sustainability brief: how can aesthetics influence the service experience of a toy library?

Shift a system from linear (buy–use–dispose) to circular (loan–use–return). Desirability, not only virtue, is what makes people switch.

We framed the toy library as an intervention at the paradigm level of a whole system. Double diamond, service mapped through people/props/processes, personas to keep it honest — and, early in 2023, Dall·E as a visual exploration tool. AI helped us sketch spaces and moods faster than by hand and ask, out loud: how do you imagine it could look inside? What could the service include?

1. 01

   Aesthetics as a systems lever

   Rather than another grey institution, we bet that desirability would carry sustainability further. If circular play looked and felt good, it would travel.

2. 02

   AI as ideation, not final answer

   Dall·E early in 2023 wasn't about aesthetics output — it was about asking questions faster. What could belong in a toy library? What mood should it hold? How do you know if it's working?

3. 03

   Service design through people, props, processes

   Not a building, not a logo. A service that lives in how you borrow, what's available, how you return it, and how it feels.

A small academic project that carries a lot of how I think: sustainability treated as a systems shift, aesthetics treated as a service lever, and new tools picked up early when they help the thinking move. The curiosity that drives my work — toward systems, toward questions, toward tools that expand what's possible — lived in this project.