If there is a company capable of generating architects and engineers without breaking a sweat, that is the Danish company Lego, which has built a headquarters that has nothing to envy its flagship product.
If there is a company responsible for invigorating the constructive imagination, on a global scale, one name comes to mind for all of us: LEGO®. It is hard to imagine a generation that has not had easily interlocking colored blocks at home, opening an enriching range to children’s minds. I wonder how many architects or engineers decided on their profession while carelessly playing with them.
At the end of 2019, the company concluded phase one of its new Campus. It is an ambitious project that began four years ago, and with which they intend to generate 52,000 square meters of surface area. The construction of the LEGO® Campus is scheduled to end in 2021. It will be made up of eight sections that will make up a huge recreational-commercial building, in which 2,000 company employees will work.
The original and creative LEGO Campus
The two operational buildings are dedicated to offices. Within them, 500 employees enjoy its enriching architecture. And it is that the company exhorted the architecture studio to make its own the values that it has been lavishing since its foundation in 1932. Values that emanate from its own name, since the word Lego derives from LEg GOdt, terms of Danish origin that mean «Play Good«.
The architects of the study C.F. Møller Architects took this to heart, drawing inspiration from a photo of Lego owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen’s (KIRKBI) office. In it, a child proudly shows a figure made with Legos. Thanks to this, the designers opted to apply vivid geometric shapes, colored, and that could be recognized with the pieces that children’s hands handle. They achieved their goal!
The building looks like it was built with LEGO blocks.
The company’s headquarters are in Billund, Denmark, and will house offices, a large auditorium, a gym, a workshop, a cafeteria and a kind of mini-hotel, intended for employees who come from other places. Of course, it also has green, a lot of green, which is expressed in a large park open to the public. But, without a doubt, the most striking thing is the plant cover with sedum, plants with great weather resistance that will absorb carbon dioxide. In addition, this cover collects rainwater and stores it for watering the garden.
The building simulates having been built with Lego pieces, therefore, as the crowning glory of the complex, we find a large intense yellow room protruding to the outside. A striking construction that has been achieved thanks to composite panels. The glazed part reaches it, with different sections and well marked, so that they simulate being modules, where simulations of the famous «blocks» have been randomly inscribed.
A fantasy exterior and interior design
The complex is a true work of fantasy. On the outside, the three materials of the envelope, aluminium, stone and glass, combine perfectly. While inside, the imagination of interior designers expands with rooms and offices full of color, which interact with users and their interests. For example, a vibrant bright green spiral staircase serves as a connection between floors.
In total, the mega-building reaches between two and five floors, in addition to a basement of 12,000 square meters, which includes a room for events, workshops and installation rooms. The height of the ground floor is 5.3 meters and that of the upper floors is 4.8 meters, an outrage if we compare them with the classic heights of between 2.7 and 3.2 meters. A gift to users so that they never feel oppressed, in addition to generating enough interior atmosphere.
A fun and sustainable building
The idea is that in each building a specific tonality predominates on the outside, but inside things change. There are many areas of interaction and their striking colors express the need to implant disparate experiences in employees, something that helps increase creativity, a very necessary characteristic for those who work designing children’s toys. Pink corridors, block-shaped walls, comfortable sofas in each space, textile floors or large ceramic formats and, above all, a multitude of nods to LEGO® products.
Another strong point of the construction is sustainability. In this case, he has the help of a nearby garage where they have installed 4,150 solar panels. These will supply 50% of the energy needed by the complex, 1 million kWh (kilowatt hour). Another example of sustainable action is to use special gypsum fiber boards for the interior division, saving the use of metal structures as support. This has avoided the use of 22 tons of steel and the emission of 650 tons of CO2.
A LEGO block to play and boost creativity
The construction company K.G. Hansen & Sønner tells that for the construction of the current mega-building, other existing buildings had to be demolished in stages, so that there would always be active offices. His work has been decisive. And it is never wrong to remember that the contracting companies are responsible for the general good work. Its workers have taken care of all the details, such as the stone walls fragmented into thin sheets on the outside and the exquisite work that cant the rest of the building.
We must also highlight the role of the NIRAS company. This has been responsible for engineering, from lighting to acoustics, and through the implementation of sustainable elements. They tell us how different types of blinds were used, some automatic and others permanent, which are supported by double facades, in such a way that a faster transfer of temperatures between the outside and the inside is avoided.
In the end, everyone has put their Lego «block» to secure a great structure and a large space that will help greater creativity and generate better toys for our infants.