snohetta + SOM + SHoP architects design buildings with LEGO

buildings designed in LEGO by snohetta + SOM + SHoP architects
image via wired © gregory reid

earlier this summer, LEGO launched a monochromatic architecture set containing only white bricks and without instructions, hoping to give creatives a platform to develop an understanding of architecture. recently, wired had the chance to give the 1,200 piece set to three professional studios – snøhetta, SOM, and SHoP architects – to see what they could come up with.

image via wired © gregory reid

in an attempt to capture the plastic bricks’ relationship to gravity, snøhetta’s new york office conceived a floating L-like structure balancing on a section of LEGO that stretches vertically and horizontally across its surroundings. ‘we thought it would be interesting to capture the feeling of gravity in a LEGO block, where gravity actually has very little influence in many ways on its structure,’ craig dykers, snøhetta’s co-founder tells wired. ‘balance became a big discussion point, and how could we create something where you could feel the weight of a lego holding something up.’

image via wired © gregory reid

being a LEGO fanatic all his life, gregg pasquarelli from new york-based SHoP architects developed a futuristic cityscape influenced by the japanese metabolism movement. ‘it’s why I became an architect,’ he tells wired. ‘I grew up in the boroughs of new york, and I could see the manhattan skyline from my window as a child, and I literally sat there and mimicked all the buildings I could see in lego. it made me fall in love with building and architecture.’ in the process of finalizing the design, pasquarelli also managed to make lifelong dream come true: he supplemented the structure with his own custom 3D printed wave-like LEGO bricks for parts of the facades.

aerial view of SHoP’s skyscraper cityscape
image via wired © gregory reid

responsible for the design of the tallest skyscraper in the world – the burj khalifa in dubai – chicago’s SOM decided to take a different approach in their production process: freezing the building in a block of ice. ‘we made little mock-ups of it, and froze them at home in people’s freezers to make sure it would work,’ design director eric keune tells wired. built as an individual standing block structure, the volume reveals its interior fabric as it melts, slowly creating a dialogue between the material and the modular toy bricks.