Designer Camille Walala has created a life-sized toy house to mark the launch of Lego Dots, the toy company’s latest product. The House of Dots was open to the public from January 28th – February 2nd 2020.
French-born and based in London, Camille Walala is known for her full-facade murals, immersive 3D installations, street art, interiors and set design, characterised by a fusion of bold colours and playful geometric patterns. Her Dream Come True Building in Old Street in 2015 decorated a plain office block in geometric patterns, and she has also worked on the creative direction of the groundbreaking Mauritian hotel SALT of Palmar, and installations for events like NYC’s WantedDesign and London Design Festival – including Walala Lounge, as complete suite of semi-permanent street furniture that transformed South Molton Street, Mayfair, into a corridor of colour.
The Lego House of Dots has all the features of a regular home, with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, built into a two-story complex of eight containers in London’s Coal Drops Yard. Instead of paint, the complex was decorated with more than two million pieces of Lego’s new product Dots, a 2D tile which comes in an assortment of shapes and colours.
Dots
To create the House of Dots, Camille Walala placed Dots individually and by hand onto large Lego base plates, which in mounted to the surface of the different plywood furniture pieces and home decor elements. Over two million Dots were used covering 150 square meters, with 180 children from Kings Cross Academy and eight AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego) helping to create everything from rugs, wall artwork and plant pots to kitchen elements.
“The tiles are the literal building blocks of the design,” said Camille Walala; “I worked with Dots of different scales, starting with the smallest, one-centimetre tile and using it to create patterns around the house – on cushions, walls and even the window on the facade.”
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Rather than cutting the Dots to shape, Camille Walala had to design the furniture to fit; “I had to design to Lego’s scale, thinking in terms of how many tiles we’d need to make a particular pattern,” she said. “There was a lot of maths involved. To create a table, for example, we had to ensure its length corresponded precisely to a set number of pieces.”
“Like most kids, I grew up loving Lego,” said Camille Walala. “The Dots give kids new opportunities to express themselves through colour and pattern – which is obviously something very important to me.”
Each room had its own colour palette, the bathroom monochrome, the bedroom pastel, the kitchen in primary colours and the lounge using the full palette of Dots. Other features of the house include a ball-pit and a mirrored disco room with UV lighting.
Creatives
Lego’s Dots range includes bracelets, photo cubes, jewellery holders and other accessories. Lego says its Dots “Tap into the arts and crafts space by using a 2D tile-based play concept that offers children a creative canvas for self-expression. Based on multiple shapes and colourful tiles, it is supported by an exciting portfolio that ranges from wearables to room décor with surfaces designed for individual customisation and self-expression. To excite young creatives even more, over thirty mood tiles are also being introduced, incl. facial expressions, music note, cosmic planet, star night, paw prints and a rainbow pooh – and many more.
“Being based on the LEGO System in Play, there are limitless ways children can DOT their world, taking all elements apart and redesigning again to help build their creative flair and confidence.”
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Lena Dixen, Senior Vice President and Head of Product and Marketing Development at the LEGO Group, says about the collaboration with Camille Walala: “We’re extremely excited to introduce LEGO DOTS as a new arts and crafts building concept giving children a creative canvas for social, self-expressive play with endless, ever-changing patterns, colours and designs. As someone who epitomises how confidence in your creativity can have a tremendous impact, Camille was perfect to collaborate with to announce it to the world. She has created something extraordinary and immensely fun that we can’t wait for our fans to explore and be inspired by.”
