Why ‘LEGO’ is must for every designer?
Not new to you, most of us had the pleasure of playing with Lego in some or the other parts of our lives.But I could not have imagined how Lego was helping me make my career. I had never imagined myself as an architect till my high school. Fortunately, Lego was the only confrontation which had connection to architecture, which had made me learn few things about it, may it, may it be about basic building unit — brick or different type of roofs. Every one of us, were the architect of our dreams, with Lego.
Started as wooden toys in 1932, Lego in plastic sequence became famous in 1960s worldwide. From then on, tremendous research and hard work by Lego company has given us some mind blowing products. But the most important thing to understand today is that ‘Lego is a brilliant teaching aid.’ Few reason are :
1.) Modularity
Every designer knows the importance of geometry in a good deliverable. The modular nature of whole Lego concept, allows you to play and come up with different forms composed of smaller brick modules.
This step takes out the very complexity of writing down mathematical equations or using softwares to conceptualize an initial thought.
Even for a product designer, a typographer or a graphic designer, Lego can be an excellent tool at hand to compose and initialize designs.
2.) Reversibility
With this at hand, you don’t have to worry about mistakes. Reversibility allows you to experiment, explore and permute to come up with best design. It can be an excellent tool for someone not good with hand-skills such as sketching and want to get away from the pen & eraser-paper mode.
3.) Easy to Handle
Glue, Scissors or Cutters? No, you don’t need anything with Lego. Away from all the hassle, Lego are harmless and easy to handle. This is the very reason, which allows it to be loved by all the generations.
Other modes of physical model making may require electricity (3D Printing) or resources & skills (Physical Modelling), but with Lego, you only need your mad mind. One may get frustrated after being encountered with hours of digital screen, but I have never seen a sad face with Lego. Its adaptability has brought more than a billion smiles worldwide.
4.) Availability
Presently, you can easily find Lego in almost every corner of the world. The company have a wide range of products meeting demands of almost creative fields. Currently, architecture and cinema are the major two industries which are obsessed with it and have witnessed a huge development.
Ar. Bjarke Ingels designed the Lego House inspired the Lego itself.
For me the LEGO brick embodies the notion of systematic creativity — that the rigour and rationality of theLEGO brick allows children of all ages infinite possibilities to create their own worlds and to inhabit them through play. — Bjarke Ingels
Digital world has already witnessed the ever crazy fame and obsession of Lego in ‘The Lego movie.’
It holds a good opportunity for sculptors; and many of them have already shown some excellence with it. You can explore their works at :
