Automatic Binding Bricks
I was recently dispatched to North Star Mall on a Friday evening. I generally try to avoid going to this (or any other) mall if I can help it - especially at a time of day when I'd prefer to already be in my PJs - but the specific color of the specific pair of shoes my teenage daughter wanted for her birthday was only available at the North Star Mall Foot Locker, and so off I went.
The sensory overload was as overwhelming as could be expected, but through the cacophony of late-stage capitalism, an illuminated red sign at the far end of the concourse immediately seized my attention. Although it was too far away for my middle-aged eyes to actually read its rounded italicized letters, I instinctively knew the spelled out "LEGO."
A significant portion of my childhood was spent in the company of multi-colored plastic bricks like the ones sold within the store advertised by that distant sign. I would be given a new LEGO set as a gift for my birthday or Christmas and as soon as the party or dinner was over, I'd retreat to my room, rip open the box, and carefully follow the included instructions to assemble seemingly unrelated pieces to create whatever happened to be pictured on the box. I would spend a few weeks playing with the fire station, castle, or spaceship, but before long the set would be broken up into its constituent parts. These would be dumped into buckets containing the remains of previous birthday and Christmas gifts, but they would not sit idle for long. The interlocking pieces would soon be resurrected and reassembled into ski jumps, semi trucks, or different kinds of spaceships.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a LEGO set is that it’s never just the toy pictured on the box. The parts contained inside could be used to build that, of course, but they could also be used to build many other things. The included instructions might help kids learn how to follow detailed directions (while also teaching them to decipher information communicated visually via isometric drawings), but the interchangeability of the plastic bricks beckon them to transcend those instructions. LEGOs demonstrate not only that creativity is possible within the limitations of a standardized system, but that creativity itself can be a source of unbridled joy. It turns out an "automatic binding brick" (see US Patent no. 3005282) can generate remarkably rich and varied geometries.
Proving a counterfactual may be impossible, but I find it highly doubtful that I would have become an architect had I not grown up playing with LEGOs. Watching as a building materializes from unrecognizable materials stirs feelings similar to that when assembling a LEGO set, but codes and budgets (not to mention contractors and clients) render the experience a bit less pure. As I toiled away at “real” designs, I could watch from afar as my daughters conjured far more fantastic things from their pile of LEGO bricks. Through them I became aware of how, in the early 2000s, LEGO began establishing licensing deals with media corporations so that Disney princesses and DC superheroes could be featured in building sets ( their Star Wars line was particularly intriguing to me since, as a child, my most pressing daily decision was often whether or not I should play with my LEGO bricks or my Star Wars figures). Still, even as LEGO began producing sets targeted specifically to adults, I refused to succumb to the temptation and drop several hundred dollars on a toy.
I was telling myself this as I wandered the aisles of the LEGO Store at North Park Mall. To help numb the despair and emptiness of mid-life, one could buy a convertible sports car or frequent a local bar. Or if one happened to be a particular kind of man-child, one could instead spend several hundred dollars on a "NASA Artemis Space Launch System" (10341). This was the siren song I succumbed to, and so left North Park Mall with a large blue Foot Locker bag in one hand and an even larger yellow LEGO bag in the other.
I had forgotten what a uniquely pleasurable act it is to assemble a LEGO set. It utilizes the perfect amount of mental focus: it's not too easy as to be boring, but also not too taxing as to be frustrating. It allows you to enter a joyful fugue state where the noise and distractions of work deadlines and election results recede into a blurry periphery.
I purposefully extended the building process for as long as possible. In the end it took me over a week to assemble the 3,601 pieces, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Even if a particular step or sub-assembly didn't make sense in isolation, all I needed to do was relax and trust the process. Even if the progress was slow, progress was always being made. Unlike so many aspects of adult life, clearly illustrated instructions were provided to communicate what needed to be done.
The only other experience I've encountered that's somewhat similar is assembling a piece of flat-packed furniture. In addition to its Scandinavian ancestry (and four-letter, all-caps name), IKEA requires its customers to assemble the thing they purchased. Although some find the process challenging, I always find it rewarding. Of course, assembling IKEA furniture lacks the distinctly pleasurable tactile snap of two LEGO pieces clicking together, but it shares the magical experience of watching as a seemingly random assortment of small pieces come together to create something much larger - and much more joyful - than the sum of its proverbial parts.
