Learning from Legos
If one factor alone was responsible for us becoming architects, it was probably Legos. And as fascinating as the plastic bricks are, they’re not what captivate us these days. As professional architects now, looking back, it’s the Lego instructions that we find so brilliant. Needless to say, the Danes were very clever with their color-coded, three-dimensional, blocky instruction booklets. Because the graphic instructions were crafted in such a clear, understandable method – words and explanations weren’t needed. This allowed the instruction booklets to accompany the sets practically anywhere in the world. It allowed the instructions to guide both children and adults in assembling the sets.
When the circumstances are right, we like to bring the graphic language of Legos into our architectural drawings. We’re currently working on a project that is a good fit for just such a graphic language. The “Listening Circle” is a simple wood framed shelter for the Seattle Youth Garden Works here in Seattle. Because the project will be constructed by a group of unknown volunteers, a step by step instruction booklet is very advantageous. While architectural drawings typically don’t address means and methods, in this situation step by step instructions with a roster of the required parts and assemblies could be very helpful. So we brushed up on our Lego language skills and thought you might get a kick out of the instructions booklet. We’ll be following up with the construction process and finished product in a later post.
By mike, June 11, 2009 @ 3:49 pm
lego technic is sooo much more interesting than lego bricks. but even in DE in the 80s, they weren’t cheap…
visiting legoland as an 8 year old blew my freakin mind.
it really saddens me to see lego now, with spongebob, starwars and Indiana jones lines. What happened to giving kids a tub of bricks and having them make stuff on their own?
though I really dig the diagrammatic construction docs, might have to appropriate for a project also being built by laypersons.
By .matthew, June 11, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
Hey, where’s the we lego man w/ hard hat for scale?
By Damian, June 12, 2009 @ 2:08 am
Lego instruction books is probably why I love programs like Revit which let Architects illustrate their projects in such a similar manner. Lego graphics rock.
By Tyler, June 12, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Legos are all right but Construx are far superior. You’ll have to troll Craigslist to find them though – such a shame.
By Knudsen, June 12, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
These instructions come through on my phone almost clearly enough to build from. If the screen were just a bit bigger or the resolution just a bit higher – I wouldn’t need the prints. Maybe the “paperless age”, that our professors were always touting, is getting closer.
By Vincent Baudoin, June 17, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
So true. Somewhere, I still have the 12-page instruction set I carefully hand-drafted and sent to LEGO documenting one of my childhood designs. (They sent it back, with their regrets that they could not use it.)