Alumna Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam's Crocheted Playground Installations Featured in The Thread
Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam (MFA Fiber 1966), whose expansive crocheted installations, designed as vibrant, interactive spaces for children, are the subject of a new feature in The Thread, the blog of Fabrics-Store.com.
The article profiles Horiuchi-MacAdam’s distinctive practice, which sits at the intersection of textile art, architecture, and social purpose. Working with colorful, hand-crocheted nylon threads, she creates large-scale net-like structures that invite children to climb, explore, and play freely — a vision she has pursued for decades with both artistic rigor and deep humanitarian intention. “We need to create spaces for children to play with each other,” she has said. “Children learn through play, grow emotionally and imaginatively; they develop social skills, learn to cooperate, and gain wisdom about life.”
Born in Japan in 1940, Horiuchi-MacAdam studied at the Tama Fine Art Institute in Tokyo before completing her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Early in her career, she worked as a textile designer for Boris Kroll Fabrics in New York, then transitioned to teaching at arts institutions throughout the United States and Japan. During the 1970s, she began producing ambitious crocheted works at architectural scale, drawing inspiration from the structural forms of Antoni Gaudí and the mosques of Isfahan. The direction of her practice shifted decisively when she observed children spontaneously climbing inside one of her gallery sculptures. Recognizing the potential for her art to serve a pressing need, particularly in Tokyo, where access to outdoor play space is limited, she redirected her work toward children.
Her first child-oriented piece was donated to a Tokyo kindergarten; subsequent commissions followed at the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Kanagawa and at sites across Japan and beyond. Each structure is made largely by hand, a labor-intensive process involving a team of skilled makers. Together with her husband, she founded Interplay Design and Manufacturing in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, a company dedicated to producing “play sculptures” for children worldwide.
The Thread feature draws on Horiuchi-MacAdam’s own words to illuminate the philosophical underpinnings of a practice spanning more than five decades — one that treats craft, architecture, and play as inseparable.
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