If not for a team of stalwart engineers, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater would long ago have been felled by gravity's slow pull. Thank your project engineer for giving your designs a foundation to stand on. These gift ideas feature dynamic materials and prompt their users to relax and have a little fun.
1. Scent Candle Gift Set, Tom Dixon
Picked by: Brooks Atwood, founder and principal of Brooks Atwood Design
Those colleagues who ensure your designs will work will appreciate these candles for their heavenly aromas as well as their handspun brass, copper, and nickel vessels. "Engineers will love the metals and weight to these amazeballs scented candles," Atwood says. Amazeballs, indeed. $120 (set of three); tomdixon.net
2. Balancing Blocks Multi, Fort Standard
Picked by: Adam Zimmerman, AIA, Zimmerman Workshop
Connect your engineers to their inner child with this smart set of blocks. Packaged in a drawstring bag, the 10 faceted stone-sized wooden shapes will allow them to build their own desktop structures. $48; fab.com
3. Age Your Own Whiskey Kit, Woodinville Whiskey Company
Picked by: Colin Brice, co-founder of Mapos
A bottle of whiskey may be an unimaginative present, but "some things need DIY engineering," Brice says, "like aging your own 110-proof whiskey." Give engineers a chance to become distillers and create their own special scotch in as little as three months. $149.99; binnys.com