When Lego announced that it was opening an interactive house made of eight shipping containers in London to promote a new product, it took just two hours to sell out.
The vibrant installation, "House of Dots", was the result of a collaboration between the Danish brand and French artist Camille Walala, known for her bold patterns and designs. It aimed to promote the Lego Dots range, which launched this week.
Lego wanted to tease the 2D tile range to a global audience and chose a free art installation so that fans could experience the product themselves.
Lena Dixen, senior vice-president and head of product and marketing development at Lego, explained: "With the launch of Lego Dots, which is all about creating, designing and decorating, it was very natural for us to look for artists who could help us bring this to life – and what better choice than Camille, with her beautiful colours and patterns, and the shared values we have around creativity, self-expression and accessibility."
The playful activation, created by XYZ, contained five spaces – and everything from the walls to the floors featured Lego Dots in Walala’s distinctive style.
Describing the creative process, Walala said: "I was really excited when I saw the new product and new shapes, and wanted to create something really ambitious – a space for interaction where kids could come and explore and be creative, and not be afraid to use colour. So it has been a really nice collaboration between Lego, myself and my studio to combine the expertise and come up with a really playful concept."
It took about 800 people-hours to "Dot" the installation and two million Dots tiles were used to create the "House of Dots", which Dixen believes was a natural way to convey the new range to consumers.
"People are used to seeing Lego in 3D creations with the bricks and this is something different and we needed to share that with the world," Walala added. "We needed to get this in to the hands of artists, kids and fans alike, so going into an art installation like this felt like a very natural thing to do for this product."
Video produced by Ben Londesbrough