DIY Lego

Back in Spring I had an opportunity to live my childhood dream of designing toys for Lego. This experience was made possible by Design School Kolding's Nordic Design Camp which invited students from across the region to work together for a week in cross disciplinary teams.

Our first day started off with a presentation given by one of Design School Kolding's graduates, Philip, who now has the coolest job ever and works at Lego’s Future Lab. He kicked off the event by challenging us to design something that is “obviously Lego but has never been seen before.” Following this mindset, we were then broken up into pairs and were given a theme to apply Lego to. I was paired up with Solène Louedec and we were given the theme of "Hacking Culture". 

We were advised by Phillip to stay away from the digital aspect of hacking which initially made us concerned since the mainstream hacking culture is usually related to computers and code. However, we quickly overcame this after dissecting what hacking culture is really all about and summed it up into one idea that lead us through the rest of the project. 

“Hacking is innovation that goes beyond the original system.”

Since we only had a week to complete this entire project, we had no time to waste and immediately dove into a high paced brainstorming session. 24 long and brain sweating hours later we had came up with 50 different ideas that would combine the essence of hacking with Lego. With a short break to breathe (and eat) in between we were tasked to group the 50 ideas into five well developed ones by the next day.  

Luckily we were fed like royalty throughout the week and always had enough energy to push through the long hours. Even the cooks had their part to play in the Nordic Design Camp by providing various cuisine experiences. For our first dinner together we were given an unlimited supply of food, cooking equipment, and a boundless access to the kitchen to prepare a dish from our country of origin. 

Midway through the camp we were tasked to decide on the final idea which we would then develop and present to Lego by the end of the week. This idea had to be well thought out, physically constructed, and supported with an explanatory movie. At first all of these deliverables seemed unachievable with only two days of work left but a large supply of cake quickly brought up the morale. 

After an exhausting but rewarding week (which felt like a month) we presented our concepts to Phillip and his colleague Minh. Our proposition was a Lego Do-It-Yourself kit which provided all of the necessary tools for anyone to create their own Lego blocks out of a wide range of material. Both Future Lab designers were very impressed with the quality of work that was achieved within a short week and provided valuable feedback to further improve our projects. 

Reflecting back on this experience now, this week remains one of my most favorite and memorable out of the entire exchange semester. Design School Kolding will hold a much larger international Design Camp in the Fall time which I strongly suggest for anyone that can to participate!