The Ball That Got It All Rolling

How do you stack balls to build a tower? And how do you prevent the colourful wooden elements from rolling away during play and disappearing underneath pieces of furniture? For product developers Falko Schnelle and Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann, the answer was child’s play, so to speak. First, they designed a tub in which kids can play with the wooden balls without those rolling away all the time. Later, they created rings which allow for stacking the wooden balls, and clever crosspieces on which the balls can rest. Next, they added bolts and nuts, rotatable axes, wheels, and cogwheels. Construction material you can use to build animals, cars, or even wind turbines and actuate them. They call their toy system “KuKo – Kugelkonzept” [ball concept], a spherical equivalent to traditional angular building blocks or Lego pieces. “We have developed the concept further one piece at a time, and by now, we’ve created a whole cosmos,” says Falko Schnelle. A cosmos which to date comprises even furniture and interior accessories that one can play with and which act as storage space for the concept material once playing is over.

What makes children want to play

Educational and sustainable toys for children of all ages are the hobby of the two h_da alumni Falko Schnelle and Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann. Schnelle already dealt with children’s toys in his industrial design diploma thesis. He is interested in how to make children want to play and what they can learn in the process. “I come from a family of pedagogues,” he laughs. After finishing his studies in Darmstadt, the 41-year-old first worked as head of the design department for a company supplying material for kindergartens and educational toys in the Giessen (Hesse) area. He invited his friend and former fellow student Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann on board, and only a few years later, in 2015, both started out as a self-employed team of product developers with their “studio groß klein”, which means “studio big small”, initially located in Giessen, today in neighbouring Heuchelheim (www.studiogrossklein.de).
“We want to live the dream of our own studio,” Mühlig-Hofmann says. The two of them understand their role to act as design service providers for companies, developing a product from the first idea all the way to the market launch. The list of references comprises welding devices, measuring tools for the optical industry, bags, and even a foldable bicycle helmet – incidentally Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann's diploma thesis subject.
Even as a kid and adolescent, Falko Schnelle liked to tinker around, build stuff, and work with his hands. Schnelle, born in Heidelberg, decided to start his studies in Darmstadt in 2004 because he wanted to create design with real applications. “Design that’s useful, not just nice to look at,” he says. For him, the Mathildenhöhe as a location rife with tradition and the cradle of arts and crafts pervading everyday life was the perfect place to be. Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann used to work as a temp for a visual design agency before his studies; he also completed a vocational training as CAD assistant in construction and worked as a kind of technical architectural draughtsman. After that, he started studying architecture in Gießen. “But somehow, something was missing all the time,” this father of two recalls. In Darmstadt he then found what he had been looking for: a combination of technology and creativity, honest design, function, and quality. “At the Mathildenhöhe, I felt at home right away, and that carried me through my entire studies,” the alumnus emphasises. 

Shared history

Falko Schnelle and Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann became friends during their studies. They worked on projects together, and they soon found out that they had even more in common. Johannes was born in Italy. His parents had emigrated to Tuscany where they worked on the large country estate belonging to an entrepreneur family from Heidelberg. Falko Schnelle’s parents also had ties to this family and lived in one of their pieces of real estate in Heidelberg. “So we grew up with the same neighbours,” the alumni recount.
Remembering their studies, both agree that the predominant feeling was that of being free in their thinking. They particularly remember professors Justus Theinert and Tom Philipps from whom they learnt so much. Extending the limits, questioning everything, being self-critical – that’s what their time at h_da has taught them. What is the meaning of innovation? How do you arrive at a truly novel design while interacting with structure and the tried and tested? Questions they found answers to at the Mathildenhöhe as well as during their study sojourns in Japan. There, too, they discovered common ground. “We are both enthusiastic about the minimalist design and the culture of Japan,” Schnelle recounts. During his studies, he worked as an intern in Tokyo, while Mühlig-Hofmann took part in an exchange programme with the partner universities at Fukuoka and Kyushu. “In this regard, we owe a great deal to Hochschule Darmstadt,” they emphasise. “Those opportunities proved very enriching for our studies. We were able to experience quite different perspectives on design.” 

Perfect complement

In their own studio, the two alumni complement each other perfectly. Falko Schnelle contributes the artistic aspect, Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann has a more functional and technology-oriented focus. “It is important that your partner approaches the project from a different angle. That complements our cooperation and makes it resilient,” the two h_da alumni emphasise. By the way: they also have two little assistants – Johannes Mühlig-Hofmann’s two little children, aged 6 and 2. They are the first who are allowed to play with the newly-designed toys and who give authentic feedback on whether the new products have what it takes to make kids’ hearts glow.