Seeing the world in plastic bricks

Seattle resident Alice Finch sees the world’s architecture in Lego.

Looking at the Moscow building that houses the Eureka! Palouse Tinkering and Tutoring Center at 509 S. Howard St., for example, Finch sees a specific color of green – what Lego calls “Sand Green.”

“Everywhere I go, I see things in a brick form,” Finch told the Daily News.

Wearing a metallic Lego brick pendant necklace designed by JacQueline Sanchez, a Portland-based jeweler known for her niche, Lego-inspired pieces, Finch gave students and adults a glimpse into the inner workings of her mind Saturday afternoon at a kickoff for Eureka!’s first ever Community Big Build.

The goal of the project is simple – to build a large scale version of downtown Moscow completely out of Lego pieces, in partnership with the University of Idaho College of Art and Architecture.

Classes start at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Eureka!, where students will begin the Community Big Build project.

Finch had plenty of advice to offer on building large Lego structures.

Renowned by the Lego community for the true-to-form architectural Lego structures she designs herself, Finch was first discovered by The Lego Group after she spent a year building a 400,000 piece Hogwarts Castle structure in 2011. The structure is 13 feet long, 5 feet wide and features scenes from nearly all the movies and books. Finch has been building models for Lego books and creating large scale structures ever since.

She recently contributed her work to a book called, “365 Things to Do with LEGO Bricks,” including practical things to build with Lego, which she signed at BookPeople of Moscow Saturday morning.

For Finch, Lego is not just a profession – it’s a fun and meaningful way to interact with her children.

“We interact on a different level than parent and child because we’re all builders, so we’re just collaborators or colleagues, which is kind of unique,” Finch said. “Not often do parents actually get to be on the same footing as kids.”

Using the McConnell Mansion in downtown Moscow as an example, Finch gave her first impressions of the building and went through some of the Lego pieces she said she would use to bring the finest details of the architecture to life. She advocated for the creative and unconventional use of Lego pieces to capture the details of each unique downtown building.

“By the way, you guys have a lot of really nice looking old buildings here. With character, they’re all different,” Finch said.

With that, kids got to work on their assignment from Finch – building a unique, unconventional wall out of Lego pieces provided by Eureka!

Official Lego classes will start this Thursday, Oct. 26, beginning at 3:30 p.m., where students will begin the Community Big Build project.