Springing from the site of the former City Hall building in Billund, Denmark, a new LEGO experience hub looks like it was built out of giant, colorful LEGO blocks. Bjarke Ingels Group and COWI designed the 12,000-sm LEGO House.
The 23-meter-tall building is conceived as an urban space and as an experience center. Twenty-one overlapping blocks are placed like individual buildings and frame a 2,000-sm “LEGO Square” that is illuminated through the cracks and gaps between the volumes. The plaza has no visible columns and is publicly accessible, allowing visitors and citizens of Billund to take a shortcut through the building.
Photo: Iwan Baan
The LEGO Square contains a café, restaurant, LEGO store, and conference facilities. Above the square is a cluster of galleries that overlap to create a continuous sequence of exhibitions. Each gallery is color-coded in LEGO’s primary colors to act as a simple wayfinding strategy.
Colors are also used on the first- and second-floor play zones. The play zones are arranged by color and programmed with activities that represent certain aspects of a child’s learning: red is creative, blue is cognitive, green is social, and yellow is emotional.
Photo: Iwan Baan
A “Masterpiece Gallery” sits atop the structure and contains a collection of LEGO fans’ creations that pay tribute to the LEGO community. The Masterpiece Gallery is made to resemble the 2X4 LEGO brick and uses eight circular skylights that resemble the brick’s studs. Visitors can venture to the top of the Masterpiece Gallery to get a 360-degree panoramic view of the surrounding city. Some of the rooftops can be accessed via pixilated public staircases that double as informal auditoria for people watching or seating for performances.
Photo: Iwan Baan
On the lower level is the “History Collection.” Here, visitors can experience an archival immersion into the LEGO company and the brand’s story. The Vault, meanwhile, is located underneath LEGO Square and presents visitors with the first edition of almost every LEGO set ever manufactured.
LEGO House is now open and is expected to attract more than 250,000 visitors annually. To celebrate the opening of LEGO House, LEGO released a 774-piece, 197-step kit that replicates the structure. It is part of the LEGO Architecture line and is sold exclusively at LEGO House.
Photo: Iwan Baan
Photo: Iwan Baan
Photo: Iwan Baan
Photo: Iwan Baan
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils 'floating cube' design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and leaders from the Museum of Nature & Science unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park. Groundbreaking on the approximately $185 million project will be held later this fall, and the Museum is expected to open by early 2013.
| Aug 11, 2010
Rafael Vinoly-designed East Wing opens at Cleveland Museum of Art
Rafael Vinoly Architects has designed the new East Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), Ohio, which opened to the public on June 27, 2009. Its completion marks the opening of the first of three planned wings.
| Aug 11, 2010
Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council Program Place Project
Houston, Texas
The Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council Program Place is the headquarters for the largest Girl Scout Council in the U.S., with 63,000 scouts. The building houses the council’s administrative offices, a Girl Scout museum, and activity space. When an adjacent two-story office building became available, the council jumped at the chance to expand its museum and program space.
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, HDR top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest institutional building design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 Institutional Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
Museums | Aug 11, 2010
Design guidelines for museums, archives, and art storage facilities
This column diagnoses the three most common moisture challenges with museums, archives, and art storage facilities and provides design guidance on how to avoid them.
| Aug 11, 2010
Museum celebrates African-American heritage
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture recently completed construction on the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus in Charlotte, N.C. Designed by the Freelon Group, Durham, N.C., with Batson-Cook's Atlanta office as project manager, the $18.8 million project achieved nearly 100% minority participation.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design for Miami Art Museum triples gallery space
Herzog & de Meuron has completed design development for the Miami Art Museum’s new complex, which will anchor the city’s 29-acre Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. At 120,000 sf with 32,000 sf of gallery space, the three-story museum will be three times larger than the current facility.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils ‘floating cube’ design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park in Dallas. The $185 million, 180,000-sf structure is 170 feet tall—equivalent to approximately 14 stories—and is conceived as a large...
| Aug 11, 2010
Piano's 'Flying Carpet'
Italian architect Renzo Piano refers to his $294 million, 264,000-sf Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a “temple of light.” That's all well and good, but how did Piano and the engineers from London-based Arup create an almost entirely naturally lit interior while still protecting the priceless works of art in the Institute's third-floor galleries from dangerous ultravio...
