‘making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.’ Charles Mingus

The Protected nature of Dublin’s Georgian heritage is a double edged sword for a start-up company; you get the gravitas and the postal address but you’re effectively not allowed to do more than polish the brasses without planning permission.

22,742 pieces of Lego make a boardroom table for a new advertising agency in Dublin

The recently formed Advertising agency Boys and Girls approached us with this problem, a gorgeous Geaorgian house with high ceilings, great spaces and original joinery, but décor that was decidedly solicitory. The brief was succinct; playful but not juvenile, they gave us the Mingus quote (above) too.

We recommended that all traces of solicitors be removed from the building – carpets removed, floors stripped and all 90’s paint colours whited out (if only the rest of life was this simple). If we could make the space like a small contemporary art gallery, it would be more flexible for giving presentations the ‘wow’ factor.

Our proposal also included for a 1.2 x 2.7metre boardroom table (4ft x 9ft) made out of Lego. A monolithic slab made up of a random pattern of the instantly recognizable lego pixels, with the company’s logo is built in relief into the table top, falling away under a glass surface. Architects don’t normally work as contractors so it was hugely rewarding for us and financially efficient for our client when we decided to build the table ourselves.

The table consists of 22,742 pieces clicked together with traditional lego construction techniques (no glue), a 136mm grommet is located in its centre. It sits on a polished Stainless Steel square hollow section structure built by B.A. Engineering of Prussia St and is topped with a 10mm sheet of toughened glass manufactured by Action Glass.

We made a viral of the project too with the help of Artist Cormac Browne, using tripods, clamps and magic arms from the wizards sleeve of camera equipment to take over 8,000 photos for a 2 minute stop frame animation of the construction and installation.