London Design Festival 2011: British designer Sebastian Bergne has constructed a greenhouse out of Lego in London’s Covent Garden.
The pitched roof and walls of the hut are made entirely from transparent pieces of the toy brick, allowing it to function like a conventional greenhouse.
Behind these plastic wall,s vegetables and flowers emerge from a bed of brown Lego blocks.
The greenhouse will be on display until 25 September as part of the London Design Festival.
See all our stories about the London Design Festival 2011 here and see more stories about Sebastian Bergne here.
Here’s some more text about the project from Lego:
LEGO ‘Greenhouse’ by Sebastian Bergne Comes to Covent Garden
Exhibiting in North Piazza, Covent Garden, from 15th to 25th September 2011
LEGO commissioned the award-winning designer, Sebastian Bergne, to create a public installation using the iconic bricks, as part of the London Design Festival 2011. Entitled the “LEGO Greenhouse”, this large-scale installation will be on display in the North Piazza, Covent Garden, a world-renowned cultural district, from 15th to 25th September 2011.
Since its first interlocking brick was launched in 1949, LEGO has become more popular than any other toy in history. LEGO, by its very nature, is all about design and creativity, stimulating imaginations and inspiring the builders of tomorrow. The interlocking principle with its tubes makes it unique and offers unlimited building possibilities. With about 3,900 different elements in the LEGO range, plus 58 different LEGO colours, all LEGO elements are fully compatible and six eight-studded LEGO bricks can be combined in 915 million different ways.
Choosing Covent Garden as the location for this installation was no accident as the area has previously hosted some of the most exciting cultural content in London. From partnerships with Tate Modern and Somerset House to exhibitions from the likes of Sam Taylor Wood and Banksy, the area is firmly on the design trail and has a long history with the London Design Festival.
Industrial designer, Sebastian Bergne, has run his own design studio in London for 20 years. Having generally designed consumer products including lighting and furniture, Bergne’s LEGO creation uses the iconic bricks to demonstrate the possibilities of LEGO in a public space. Inspiration has been drawn from Covent Garden’s design heritage and cultural history. Bergne has also looked to the design community in London itself, reflecting the overall Festival programme.
The LEGO Greenhouse is a functioning greenhouse built entirely from LEGO. The walls, the floors, even the earth is LEGO. The plants and vegetables growing inside are however, entirely real.
Standing in Covent Garden in front of the famous covered market, this temporary greenhouse seems out of place yet somehow fitting. Its pitched roof references reflect the architecture that surrounds it, while the plants inside bring nature back to this area once famous for its garden trade.
In daylight, the structure looks very much like an ordinary suburban greenhouse dropped into a new environment. Yet at night, it assumes another character entirely. It is transformed into a magical box, glowing and lit it seems, by the life of the plants it contains.
Though a temporary installation, the LEGO Greenhouse’s functionality hints at the possible potential of LEGO to bridge the gap between toy and useable construction for the real world.
Sebastian Bergne comments, “It’s been a pleasure to be involved with this project for LEGO and Covent Garden. What instinctively appealed to me, was that I would finally have the chance to live out a childhood dream and build something huge and usable out of LEGO.
“As with the majority of my work, I enjoy taking a material or process and pushing the boundary of what can be done with it. This time we have created an interesting juxtaposition of a natural environment growing in an almost digital, mass-produced LEGO structure, and it makes you look at LEGO in a new way.
“In my work, I love to make something special from the ordinary, and I hope that’s what has happened here. It’s an everyday function, made of a material we know, in an ordinary environment, but together they make something extraordinary and I think it is going to be quite magical.”
Bergne has worked closely with the LEGO Build and Technical Teams and Covent Garden to realise the project, with the final design built and installed by Duncan Titmarsh, the UK’s only LEGO Certified Professional.
The LEGO installation will be exhibiting in North Piazza, Covent Garden, WC2 (on the corner of James Street) from 15th to 25th September 2011, as part of the London Design Festival 2011. Free admission.
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