The brief
A fourth birthday at a garden restaurant in Canggu — turf, string lights, rice fields and palms behind. Space, for a boy of four, with a guest list of children from two to about nine and their parents standing around the edge of it.
What we built
A pale blue arch carrying <i>IVAN, 4 years</i>, with Saturn built out over the top of it, the Earth, a rocket standing on the grass with red fins, an astronaut, and a green three-eyed alien at the end that every child under five went to first. Plinths studded with stars, and a balloon garland running royal blue, sky, white, chrome silver and one clean line of orange.
How the day went
A host in a silver sequinned spacesuit ran it from the middle of the lawn. A limbo bar went up with meteorites painted and hung along it on ribbons, and the children went under it barefoot, backs arched, until they could not. Then a tunnel game — two lines facing each other, arms out — and the fathers and mothers were pulled into it and made to run through as well, which is usually the point at which a party stops being something the adults are watching.
What the parents got
A set built rather than printed — real Saturn, real rocket, real alien — and photographs of the four of them pulling faces in front of it. Nobody stood at the edge with a phone.
