Reflecting a collective need to embrace the lighter side of life in challenging times, the projects and people featured in FRAME’s spring issue (get your copy here) pay tribute to joy and unexpected wonder, exploring their role in energizing spaces and products. Here’s what you’ll find inside.

Get up to speed with the playful products defining the market today, from objects that invite experimentation and customization to kid-sized furniture and more.

Delve into the whimsical portfolios of four optimistic design practices. Find out how playfulness can be used as a tool to enhance the public realm; why consulting with children is helpful in designing spaces and products that inspire curiosity, imagination and exploration; how integrating forms of sensory play – touch, smell, sound and sight – can elevate culinary experiences; and how colour can become as an essential storytelling device.

Gain insights into whether Gen Z’s rejection of alcohol will give rise to a new wave of sober social spaces, how playful design is reshaping residences, and the influence of the ‘joyconomy’ on the realm of retail.

Learn from two leading academics how designers can tap into science to create spaces that are more conducive to our wellbeing, how ‘joyful’ buildings can emerge from education and practice that is more critically engaged and human-centric, and why we should think about happiness on a spectrum rather than as a singular goal.

Be visually and conceptually inspired by cross-disciplinary creative concepts that reawaken the uplifting power of design by emphasizing nostalgia, optimism and self-expression.

Get your copy of FRAME 161 now.