LEGO parking Billund, Denmark
The five-storey parking facility serves the LEGO Campus in central Billund. From the start, it has been a desire from the Owner that the parking house facade design should have a relation to the LEGO® brand. To achieve this and to immediately communicate the building's function, the facade design interprets the iconic LEGO City road plates, originally designed in 1977 and still in production. We have simply “borrowed” the road plates from the children’s playroom and transformed them into facade elements.
This facade consists of aluminium panels that scale up the original road plates to 150×150 cm sections, which are perforated to achieve the visual road plate effect. The overall facade pattern of a road systems is combined out of only nine different section types. Also, the interplay between the translucent perforation pattern and opaque sections creates vivid light effects on both the interior and the exterior. Whereas the road structures cast changing light patterns on the raw concrete of the interior, the exterior reflects the variable daylight and weather conditions. Moreover, the perforations function as natural ventilation.
The math behind the perforation pattern is inspired by the system that is known as Truchet Tiling. The system consists of a combination of circles ranging from larger holes to micro-perforation, always proportioned according to the dimensions and ratios of the classic LEGO® brick. The smallest perforations are a 1:1 match with the building blocks, so that you can attach the bricks to the building. In this way, the facade design communicates both the purpose and location of the building in a humorous and playful way.
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