(Photo – archamelia.com)
Archamelia,™ The House of a Thousand Stories, is a customizable mark-believe paper and board world that fits on a bookshelf.
By Garrett Rowlan
Challenged to reimagine Barbie’s Dreamhouses during a course sponsored by Mattel, Charlie Neshbya-Hodges employed his understanding of gender-inclusive, human-centered product design to conceive and develop a way to accommodate a child’s favorite toys and figurines. The lunchbox-sized container has playsets that expand to over a hundred games and activities.
More information and a tour of the House are available at archamelia.com. Archamelia™ can be pre-ordered.
Charlie Neshbya-Hodges
Neshbya-Hodges was described as a “natural inventor with a mile-a-minute creative mind,” by Robbie Nock, ArtCenter’s director of Entrepreneurship and Professional Practice. A former dancer, Neshbya-Hodges choreographed a complex product with a dedication to his core values of inclusive play and positive environmental impact. He participated in ArtCenter’s Launch Lab, a capstone accelerator program in which, with support from faculty and industry advisors, he developed a startup roadmap with manufacturing, legal, financial and go-to-market strategies, inasmuch as he designed the toy house with only paper and board and FSC-certified materials sourced from responsibly managed forests in the United States.
Paper and board
Archamelia,™ The House of a Thousand Stories, is made with only two responsibly sourced materials: paper and board. The product is manufactured and hand-assembled in Los Angeles.
Neshbya-Hodges says that, “Archamelia™ is more than a product. It’s a platform for more nutritious play.”
Neshbya-Hodges graduated as valedictorian from ArtCenter in 2018. He was IDSA’s 2018 Wester District Student Award Winner, has won two gold medals in international design competitions and earned recognition for sustainability and gender neutrality.
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