Hillingdon's Lego School

Bishop Pete with the Mayor of Hillingdon, Councillor Shirley Harper-O'Neill

The playful building: designed by kids, built by kids, for kids

10/11/09

Pupils, parents and staff have been involved in a unique project to design and construct their new school building with the aid of Lego.

At Cowley St Laurence Primary School in North-West London, WHAT_architecture have taken the school children as their client to inspire creativity in young people and improve the quality of life through good design.

Lego was used as a design tool because modelling with it is quick, playful, conducive to experimentation and allows for design democracy: anyone can be the architect! By abandoning the flatness of 2D drawing for the 3D model, the new building’s overall design readily sprang into shape: a building that was both a bridge and a gateway.

The bridge connects the former independent Cowley Infant and St Laurence Junior schools. As a gate, the building replaces the layers of security fencing that formed the previous entry so that each of 371 children passes through this new portal to the imagination.

The community built a 250sq.m Lego façade: children, staff, parents and community volunteers including the nearby Brunel University participated.

The Bishop of Willesden, the Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, visited the schools and said:

"This project is a first – and a great way to involve the children in designing what greets them as they enter their school. The Lego façade speaks clearly about the pupils’ interests - what makes a school buzz - and about the values of Cowley St Laurence School."

The attempt to do something never previously achieved anywhere in the world - to build a permanent building using one million Lego bricks - is meant to inspire children to believe that anything is possible through ideas, belief, scholarship and teamwork.

Each child participated in workshops held in the school and designed their own piece of the façade. In reference to St Laurence, the patron saint of books, the façades can be read: a text wall to the reception spells out the school’s core values; the front façade mixes pictograms and hieroglyphs with religious and computer iconography. The inclusion of symbols from other faiths means this Church of England school is a place of enlightenment in its reconciliation of disparate beliefs.

The project team had to overcome many obstacles in building the permanent structure. Lego has for long held a popular fascination for its creative potential, yet its merit as an architectural treatment remains unexplored. Lego is not recognised as a compliant building material: it requires anti-graffiti protection, flame retardant treatment, UV protection and tamperproof fixings. The building has been nearly two years in planning and building regulations controls.

A Guinness World Record is pending for the largest quantity of interlocking plastic bricks.