“The great original activities of human society are all woven with game as they create a second imaginary world alongside the natural one” (Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens).

The game: a primary need

The need to play is deeply rooted in the existential, psychological and emotional features during development. It expresses creative ability, fantasy and imagination in human beings. It reveals enterprise and an innovative spirit. Through playing children learn how to get by in this world and how to mould and transform the world itself.

Building for fun

Building blocks help children to develop motor abilities and the eye-hand coordination, space abilities, creativity, diverse thinking, social and language competences. When playing with blocks children are active, they invent, they are enterprising, they grasp links, they solve problems, they cooperate. They can deal with complicated assembly instructions or freely try new compositions, they use well-framed blocks, even virtual ones, or mould sand, mud, stones and shapeless materials, integrating their structures in fictional scenarios.

The charm of building

When children work together on construction and cooperation projects, they exercise their abilities of relationship and negotiation, they become socially qualified, capable in language and communication. The intertwining of all these rich components determines the importance and the appeal of building in children. For this reason building blocks are always very popular throughout childhood and beyond, thus encouraging idea and project processing.

Building games building ideas

LEGO blocks (from Danish leg godt, “play well”) were created in Denmark in 1947. Meccano, (probably from the English phrase “Make and Know”), was officially registered in England in 1907. Everybody knows these assembling games, which are now offered in a very wide range of models and difficulty levels, including digital versions. These games are instruments for children’s projects, and even more: during the ‘50s, when the firm Ursella was building Lignano Pineta with architect Marcello D’Olivo, the owner Ermenegildo Ursella “retired from operational tasks [...] bought a Meccano and enjoyed making little wooden models, thus anticipating the idea of a prefabricated house, which the firm later specialized in (Silvino Ursella, 1950-2010 “Sixty Years of Prefabrication - The long road that leads to the building and completion of a house inside the factory”).

This study was carried out by class IV B, ISIS “Caterina Percoto” - Liceo Economico Sociale - Udine.