Why Spin Master’s Tumbling Staircase Won’t Fall Down

Turns out the making of a modern toy workshop isn’t child’s play

Building – and then knocking over – block towers is fun. It’s what makes Spin Master’s Jenga-like Jumbling Tower game so successful, and – at least in part – what pushed the growing entertainment company and game manufacturer into a six-storey, ’90s-era office tower downtown. Recognizing that corporate greige didn’t suit a toy workshop, Anthony Orasi, partner at iN Studio Creative (the team behind the new Toronto Lutron showroom) , proposed a top-to-bottom rebuild centred around a giant Jumbling-block staircase.

iN Studio couldn’t just stack lengths of timber to build it. Situated above Toronto’s PATH, the floor would not bear the weight of a solid wood staircase, so Orasi decided to hang it from the second storey. To lighten this load, the project’s millworker, MCM, built dozens of steel frames clad in white pine to affect the authentic look and feel – writ large – of Spin Master’s popular stacking game. But unlike the toy, this tower will never tumble. INSTUDIOCREATIVE.COM