World Architecture Day & LEGO House 2022

Celebrate:

Architecture Day & LEGO House 2022

by David Vi Boi Huynh (@vboihuynh)

DESIGNER PROFLIE

My name is David Boi Huynh from Vietnam, a freelance designer, currently a college alumni in architecture and interior design in California, U.S. I have always loved architecture and LEGO. Playing LEGO is really fun and creative. Explore every single LEGO brick how to form models and how to express ideas on the models which are really fun and interesting for me. I always think that how to recreate typical models in the world and create new ones of architecture and interior design with Lego bricks to enhance a new design, a new look in thinking and playing as well as learning.

I have designed some projects of architectural models with LEGO bricks such as the Taipei skyline, Landmark 81, Taipei 101, Tao Zhu Yin Yuan (Agora Garden), CN Tower, and the King Toronto Condos (B.I.G), Seoul skyline, Sharifi-ha House, etc. For the art and culture, I have a traditional wooden noodle cart, Hainan chicken rice, Van Gogh’s art gallery, and Yan Can Cook show. I learned a lot from these models such as from knowledge and culture to skills in design.

Sustainable Architecture

Sustainable architecture is also known as green architecture or environmental architecture. It challenges architects to come up with smart designs and use available technologies to ensure that structures create minimal harmful impacts on ecosystems and communities.

Sustainable building practices reduce the negative impact of construction on the environment by protecting existing ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as by reducing CO2 emissions.

CONCEPT

For the 90th anniversary of LEGO, I’d like to present an amazing model with a sustainability concept for celebrating world architecture day (on the first Monday of every October) to “remind the world of its collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat,” as well as the design of LEGO House building by Bjarke Ingels, my favorite architect, mainly focuses on sustainable and joyful concepts for his designs. I was so happy for this model won the award “Winner” prize in the contest celebrating 90 years of play in LEGO House. In my model, I mainly used white elements for buildings and towers because white is a great element that is usually presented in models in the studios of architecture, as well as green elements for plants. I scaled down all buildings in my model to bring them to come together into a small collection of the urban city in the sketchbook.

In my initial sketches, I tried to collect and analyze some popular iconic buildings in the world for putting into my model as well as arrange the location for each building. In my model, I mainly used white elements for buildings and towers because white is a great element that is usually presented in models in the studios of architecture, as well as green elements for plants. I scaled down all buildings in my model to bring them to come together into a small collection of the urban city in the sketchbook.

SKETCHES

Process

LEGO IDEAS

BLUE CASE at LEGO House, Billund, South Denmark

Photo by LEGO House

BLUE CASE at LEGO House, Billund, South Denmark

Photo by LEGO House

LEGO HOUSE

Billund, Denmark

LEGO House is an amazing building designed by Bjarke Ingels, my favorite young architect. It was built with 21 white bricks stacked on top of each other and crowned by an oversized 2 by 4. Its facade is covered with tiles, giving the illusion that the whole building is made of LEGO bricks and creating the spaces with a series of “experience zones.”

Zone A

LEGO House - “Home of the Brick” is a key point architecture building in my model, located in Zone A with using color elements to highlight the more joyfully and elegantly than other ones as well as presenting well my theme.

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 1.2 inches/ 30.48 mm

Real building: Height: 23 m/ 23,000 mm

by vboihuynh

by vboihuynh

HABITAT 67

Year: 2018 Height: 3.2 inches / 81.28 mm Width: 5.5 inches / 139.7 mm Depth: 4.2 inches / 106.68 mm

Year: 2019 Height: 2.9 inches / 73.66 mm Width: 10.5 inches / 266.7 mm Depth: 4.3 inches / 109.22 mm

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Habitat 67 is one of the most unique and outstanding residential complexes in the world, designed by Moshe Safdie. Comprising a three-dimensional landscape of 354 stacked concrete “boxes”, Habitat 67 pioneered the combination of two major housing typologies – the urban garden residence and the modular high-rise apartment building.

Zone B

Zone B includes Habitat 67, Tao Zhu Yin Yuan (Agora Garden), De Rotterdam, Petronas Towers, Bank of China Tower (Hongkong), Tour Montparnasse, Taipei 101, Gojunoto - The five-story pagoda (Shitennō-Ji pagoda), Hanok (Korea).

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 0.7 inches/ 17.78 mm

Real building: Height: 145.05 ft / 44,211.24 mm

by vboihuynh

It

TAO ZHU YIN YUAN

Model

Real

by

DE ROTTERDAM

Rotterdam, Nertherlands

De Rotterdam is a great building with three stacked and interconnecting towers, which rise 44 floors to a height of 150 meters and span a width of over 100 meters. Nevertheless, the building is exceptionally compact, with a mix of programs organized into distinct but overlapping blocks of commercial office space, residential apartments, hotel and conference facilities, restaurants, and cafes. Office employees, residents, and hotel guests are brought together in conference, sports, and restaurant facilities. The building’s shared plinth is the location of the lobbies to each of the towers, creating a pedestrianized public hub by means of a common hall.

Zone

Real building: Height: 489.2 ft / 149,108.16 mm

Model with

by vboihuynh

PETRONAS TOWERS

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Petronas Towers designed by Cesar Pelli stands as a cultural and architectural icon in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The towers are not simply recognized for their height, but it is characterized by two overlapping squares, one rotated 45 degrees, with a circle inscribed in the center and incorporating Islamic motifs. Especially, the bridge is an important factor to connect the relationship between the two towers. The towers presented a more elegant and delicate aesthetic that reflected well Islamic art.

Zone B

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 6.1 inches/ 154.94 mm

Real building: Height: 1,230 ft / 374,904 mm

by vboihuynh

BANK of CHINA TOWER

Hongkong, China

Bank of China Tower (BOC Tower) is a skyscraper located in Central, Hong Kong, designed by I.M. Pei. Comprised of four vertical shafts, the tower emerges from a 52-meter cube and reduces its mass, quadrant by quadrant, until a single triangular prism resides. The faceted prism is clad in reflective glass that mirrors the changing sky, anchoring the expansive business district and providing a characteristic vertical axis to Hong Kong’s towering skyline.

The bamboo plant was also a significant inspiration for this unique building. The trunk of this massive structure is representative of the growth patterns of bamboo, the symbol of hope and revitalization in Chinese culture.

Zone

Real building: Height: 1,205 ft / 367,284 mm

Model with Lego bricks: Height: 4.1 inches/ 104.14 mm

by vboihuynh

TOUR MONTPARNASSE

Paris, France

Tour Maine-Montparnasse (Maine-Montparnasse Tower), also commonly named Tour Montparnasse, is a 210-meter (689 ft) office skyscraper located in the Montparnasse area of Paris, France. Constructed from 1969 to 1973, it was the tallest skyscraper in France until 2011, when it was surpassed by the 231-meter (758 ft) Tour First. It remains the tallest building in Paris outside of the La Défense business district. As of February 2020, it is the 14th tallest building in the European Union. The tower was designed by architects Eugène Beaudouin, Urbain Cassan, and Louis Hoym de Marien and built by Campenon Bernard.

Model

Real

by

TAIPEI 101

Model

Real building: Height:

by vboihuynh

SHITENNOJI

Zone B

Shitennoji (四天王寺, Shitennōji) is one of Japan’s oldest temples and the first-ever to be built by the state. It was founded in 593 by Prince Shotoku, who supported the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. Although the temple’s buildings burned down several times throughout the centuries, they were always carefully reconstructed to reflect the original 6th-century design.

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 1.6 inches/ 40.64 mm

Real building: Height: 300m / 300,000 mm

vboihuynh

HANOK

South Korea

Hanok refers to houses built in the traditional Korean style. While tile-roofed and thatch-roofed Hanoks were equally common, the former were typically noblemen’s residences while the latter were mostly houses of the commoners in the past. These days, most traditional Hanok that are still used for housing have modern facilities installed within.

by vboihuynh

SALESFORCE TOWER

San Francisco, California, USA

Standing 326 meters (1,070 feet) tall, the tower has the simple, timeless form of the obelisk, giving the 61-story tower a slender, tapering silhouette. The walls are composed of clear glass with pearlescent metal accents. These horizontal and vertical accents gradually taper in depth to accentuate the curved glass corners. The walls rise past the top floor to form a transparent crown that appears to dissolve into the sky. Carved into the tower top is a vertical facet that will be lit at night.

Zone C

Zone C includes San Francisco Salesforce Tower, Willis Tower, Burj Khalifa, Landmark 81, Shanghai World Financial Center.

Zone C

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 5.0 inches/ 127.0 mm

Real building: Height: 1,070 ft / 326,136 mm

by vboihuynh

WILLIS TOWER

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Standing 110 stories tall with its black aluminum and bronze-tinted glass exterior has become emblematic of Chicago, a city crazy about its architecture. Willis Tower is considered a seminal achievement for engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan.

Zone

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 8.8

Real building: Height: 1,450 ft / 441,960 mm

by vboihuynh

Zone

BURJ KHALIFA

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Burj Khalifa is a super high skyscraper in Dubai, that incorporates new structural and construction efficiencies to reduce material usage and waste. These include a “taken from the sky” ventilation system, in which cool, less humid air is drawn in through the top of the building. The tower also has one of the largest condensate recovery systems in the world.

The overall design of the tower is inspired by the shape of a re gional desert flower and the pattern system embodied in Islamic architecture. Built of reinforced concrete and covered with glass, the tower consists of sculptural blocks arranged around a core with a knot in the middle. As the tower rises from the flat ground, the setback occurs in an upward spiral pattern, reducing the mass of the building as it rises into the sky. At the pinnacle, the central nucleus emerges and forms a spire.

Zone

Real building: Height: 2,717

Model

by vboihuynh

LANDMARK

Zone

Real building: Height: 1,513 ft / 461,162.4 mm

Model with LEGO bricks: Height:

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SHANGHAI WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER

Shanghai World Financial Center is a skyscraper built in Shanghai, China. The 4.1 million-square-foot tower’s form is derived from a square prism—an ancient Chinese symbol of the earth—intersected by two “cosmic arches,” described by the architects as representing the heavens. The resulting mass provides large floor plates for offices on the lower levels (the total office space is 2.4 million square feet over 70 floors). Footprints get considerably smaller on the upper levels, where the Park Hyatt hotel occupies the 79th to 93rd floors. The building’s signature cutout top provides expansive views of the Chinese financial capital from the 100th-floor Skywalk.

Shanghai, China

The Skywalk of Shanghai World Financial Center is truly phenomenal at the SWFC. At a height of 474m on the 100th floor, the gallery for views is 60-yards long and has a reinforced glass floor. Just imagine walking atop the turrets of the 88th floor Jin Mao Tower and reaching out to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower! That’s exactly how it feels! Watch the people from up above or just gaze outwards to embrace the Chinese horizon and both banks of the River Huangpu. At sunset, the illuminated skyline makes the most exhilarating of views. The 1,555 feet glass corridor has three sections of transparent glass corridor and is suspended over the bottle-opener-like opening atop the SWFC building.

by vboihuynh

MARINA BAY SANDS

Singapore

The resort is designed by Moshe Safdie. Conceptually, the project has three towers where its each tower is composed of two slabs of east and west-facing rooms. The double-loaded towers spread at the base forming a giant atrium at the lower levels and converging as they rise. The tower slabs also give further character to the massing and relate to the site context: the glazed west side faces the city center while the east side is planted with lush bougainvilleas facing the botanical gardens and ocean beyond.

In the plan, as the parcel varies in width, the cross-section is decreased from one tower to the next. The tree void spaces are connected by one continuous and conditioned glazed atrium, filling the space between the towers with restaurants, retail spaces, and a public thoroughfare. Each tower slab form is also twisted slightly in relation to its pair, creating a dance-like relationship between the two parts and accentuating the slenderness of the buildings, resulting in the appearance of six towers, rather than three, as well as creating a gateway to Singapore and providing a dynamic setting for vibrant public life.

Zone

by

PONT ÉRIC TABARLY

Nantes, France Pont Éric Tabarly is a road bridge, cable-stayed bridge with a semi-fan system, two-span cable-stayed bridge, steel bridge, and steel pylon.

432 PARK AVENUE

Model

Real building: Height: 1,397

by vboihuynh

Zone

Zone D

Zone D

Model with LEGO bricks: Height: 6.9 inches/ 175.26 mm

Using well the shape concept for designing the office building. The designer wanted to make it simple but unique and feel a bit complex with the shape styles.

by vboihuynh

“Green Architecture is a key to open a new way to see and think about design for the future and human as well as friendly environment.” _ David Vi Boi Huynh