We’re normally not too keen on Lego stuff, but we’ll make an exception in the interest of camaraderie. Plus, it involves James May from Top Gear, a show we can all get behind (even if I don’t know a darn thing about cars!). Right, so architect Barnaby Gunning designed a real house out of Lego. No, not a “Lego house,” that is, a Lego house for Lego people, but a real, human-livable house made out of Lego. Indeed.
The story goes that James May, the shaggy haired Top Gear presenter, put the word out the he wanted a Lego house built; he’d then live in it. That’s where Mr. Gunning comes in, bringing his University College London knowhow to the project.
A highlight from a recent Oobject interview:
Oobject: One of the problems with giant Lego structures we’ve seen before is that they look nasty because the designs are literal and figurative, like something from a model village. How did you manage to get the Lego house to actually look interesting architecturally?
BG: Largely that was a result of James May being on the same page as us. James realized the kitsch potential from the get go and specifically asked that we didn’t just build an overgrown standard model.
That’s the key, I guess. Not to build a merely shoddy Lego house, but to live up to James May’s infatuation with kitsch (and driving slowly and prudently).
OH THE INSANITY!!!!!
The fumes coming off all that plasic will make the FEMA formaldehyde trailers seem like the Garden of Eden in comparison. It would really, really suck if James May is quickly asphixiated or given instant leukemia. There are limits to all the Lego cutesy crap and this idea is three miles past.
Well he’s only gonna live in it for a few days. Surely that won’t kill him.
I provided some ad-hoc structural engineering advice early on to Plum Pictures and I have just seen the pictures (after a rudimentary search) which look very impressive and very contemporary. My idea however, was for a 50s 3 bed detached house, but I also like the very modern approach as well. I am not sure how they solved the first floor problem. I suggested solutions and some material testing which they seem to have adopted. The analogy to timber glulam beams is close and this would have been a way around it. Once a timber beam is designed to span a certain distance this could have been used everywehere and also intersected to form a two way span. The bottom faces, as described in another interview with Barnaby Gunning, would be layers of the thin green base board used as an ‘outer fibre’ where all the tension is. Tension due to bending being one of the engineering problems to deal with. This would have been common advice from any Structural Engineer with some thought however. Not rocket science just simple engineering. Other advice was how to build the walls in cellular bricks/blocks, what to worry about with the stairs (not yet described), consider using an Architect (they did obviously), take a look at La Corbusiers house (and other modernist designs -very rectangular generally), how to do the roof pitched or flat, sliding doors and other stuff. I probably did not pass the screen test however despite the advice. I am sure they gathered all the advice from others they asked and put it in the mix. I am very glad its going up now and look forward to seeing it in the flesh. Transmission early next year I suspect. Cheers all, Steve Cockayne – Structural Engineer