Usually, the only constraint on building a Lego creation is your imagination. Unless, that is, you build a giant structure that demands its own “Lego room.”
One Lego fan has done just that: Say hello to the “Garrison of Moriah,” and the 50-square-metre room it inhabits. Inspired by the fantastic buildings featured in the likes of Star Warsand The Lord of the Rings, Garrison creator Gerry Burrows has built a detailed (and huge) sculpture to the scale of the tiny Lego people who have the honour of inhabiting it.
Burrows has wanted to build big ever since his Lego fandom began as a child. However, it was the freedom of maturity that allowed him to realise his construction dreams. He tells Wired.co.uk: “I entered what Lego fans call ‘The Dark Ages’ – where I didn’t do anything with Lego – but when I graduated college and bought my first house, I unpacked a box of my old Lego bricks. I started thinking how I now have the money and space to actually build the things I wanted to build – without a little sister to rampage through my Lego creations.”
A combination of discovering BrickLink (“the holy grail of Lego buying”), adapting a basement for building purposes (“I told our realtor that I needed a ‘Lego room.’ He thought I was joking at first.”) and a week off work resulted in the first Lego bricks being laid on what was to become the Garrison of Moriah.
Making preparations for building, however, was just the first step. Amazingly, Burrows’ building strategy took little planning, he tells Wired.co.uk: “Nothing ever touched paper or computer. But as I would start to build and focus on individual structures, I would spend time thinking of the specific structures’ design. As I built I would get inspiration on cool directions to take.”
Burrows never suffered any disasters during construction. That’s not to say, however, there weren’t a few precautions taken in building such a megastructure: “I learned to not jump or even flinch when stepping on a Lego piece in my bare feet,” he says.
‘It’s still growing.’
Currently, the Garrison of Moriah stands at 8.5 metres long, wrapping around one-third of the room. It has a depth ranging between 61-150cm and runs from 2 metres to 3.6 metres tall – and that’s after shortening two structures to fit in the Lego room. Burrows estimates he’s used between 200,000 and 250,000 Lego bricks.
However, the Garrison is set to expand further: “It’s still growing. The bridge isn’t complete, nor is the other end of the bridge. And I’m building a fleet of custom ships,” Burrows says.
We’re holding our breaths. Until then, check out the awesome Garrison of Moriah up close, in the Wired UK gallery.
Photo courtesy Gerry Burrows