Beautiful LEGO

113(opposite) Mont-Saint-Michel 2010 (above) Salisbury Cathedral 2008

I know that you build at different scales, depend-

ing on the piece. How do you go about deter-

mining the scale you will use?

It often depends upon the scale of a particular

element. The White House’s scale depended on

the scale of the windows. Notre Dame’s scale

depended on the scale of the buttresses.

I understand you put your mathematical back-

ground to good use when building. Could you

give some examples?

The Roman Coliseum is an ellipse with a width-

to-length ratio of 6:7. There is no formula for

the circumference of an ellipse like there is fora

circle. To find the circumference, I use the arc

length formula from calculus. The Dome of the

Rock required a bit of trigonometry. To build the

dome accurately, I wrote some software that eas-

ily allowed me to build any dome shape. (If you

want to use it, just ask!)

How often do you sit down to build?

I applied for a job at the new LEGO store that was

opening in Cleveland. With so many appli cants,

they had group interviews. The first question

asked to my group was “when was the last time

you played with LEGO?” The first five answers

were “when I was a kid,” “a few years ago,” “the

last time I visited my nephew,” and then my

answer: “23 minutes ago.”