The tallest building in the world is 828 metres tall. It took 22-million man hours over six years to construct, using 110,000 tonnes of concrete. The Lego version of the Burj Khalifa, which is on show at Stack Dubai, is four metres tall, weighs 100 kilograms, consists of 80,000 blocks and took four months to build.
But the meticulous endeavour by Lego’s craftsmen to create the replica with tiny plastic bricks, steel and lighting is, in its own way, just as extraordinary.
The model was designed by British Lego master builder Edwin Diment, who researched the tower up close before creating blueprints and plans for the scaled-down version alongside skilled builder Matt Ledwich and a team of helpers. The model features working lights and thousands of transparent Lego elements that makes it shine on the outside.
“I have personally visited and been up in the Burj Khalifa,” says Diment, who makes a living from building incredible Lego models.
“While this is a useful insight, it is no substitute for those engineering drawings to get the scaling correct.
“We tend to work out a lot of the dimensions beforehand to make the build go smoothly and get everything in proportion.”
The 44-year-old enthusiast has been building with Lego since he was 2, but one particular creation altered his career path.
“I’ve played with Lego all my life and my first Moc, or My Own Creation, was a giant robot when I was 6 years old,” he says.
“But it was when I created a huge Lego spaceship 15 years back that was the turning point. I posted it online and, to my surprise, discovered the whole Lego community. That’s when I joined the Brickish Association, the UK fan club for adult Lego builders.”
As an Afol – or Adult Fan of Lego – Diment has built more than 100 models. The one that caught the attention of the Lego community was of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, which was seven metres long and used about 250,000 bricks.
“This was a collaborative build with my wife, Annie, and fellow Afol Ralph Savelsberg,” he says. “We got to set the model up on board the real Intrepid in New York, which is now a museum.”
According to the Lego expert, the main prerequisites for becoming a master builder are passion and hard work.
“It took nearly 40 years of Lego building to get to the skill level I now possess,” says Diment.
His efforts paid off when they won him a full-time builder’s job with Bright Bricks, a professional Lego-building company in the United Kingdom.
“Quite a lot of my fellow Brickish members make a living from Lego bricks,” he says. “My business partner, Duncan, became the UK’s only Lego-certified professional a few years ago and asked me to join, knowing my building skills.”
Diment says that in the past 12 months alone he has worked on more than 30 Lego models.
“Altogether, the organisation has built about 300 models in the past year,” he says. Most of the models created in the UK are stored in an industrial unit in Hampshire and only taken out and reassembled when they are on tour.
His team began working on the Burj Khalifa model in May.
“It took fours months, but this was because it was a very start-stop build,” he says.
“The addition of steel and lighting means we were sometimes waiting for parts to arrive and then built in short bursts. But overall, it probably took a month of actual build time.”
Transporting this labour of love is an even more challenging task.
“It separates into three sections and is then braced inside a pallet box,” he says. “It is then sent, along with a lot of other models, on board a shipping container.”
Diment’s next collaborative project will be with fellow UK-based Lego builders.
“Everyone will be building their own spaceship,” he says.
aahmed@thenational.ae
