Over the weekend, Fairy Bricks’ headquarters was broken into and robbed of their delivery van and a significant amount of the LEGO sets they donate to kids in hospitals. Fairy Bricks is a charity organization that frequently partners with LEGO to organize fundraising events, mosaic-builds, and hospital donations to children in need.
Hospitals have been a mainstay of the LEGO City theme since its very beginnings, but there’s never been an official set on the scale of Gary Davis‘ huge model of the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London. Gary knows the real building well, having visited it many times as a volunteer with Fairy Bricks — the charity which provides LEGO sets for children in hospital. He and Kev Gascoigne (‘Chief Fairy’ at Fairy Bricks) came up with the idea to build the model to celebrate the Evelina’s 150th anniversary.
The model took two months to design, a process which saw Gary poring over photographs and architects’ drawings, and given tours by staff of back-of-house areas to ensure the details would be correct. It took 60,000 bricks, and three months worth of building to put the model together — and somehow Gary also managed to move house during this time! The model is quite an achievement, managing to capture the distinctive shape of the real-world building, and stuff a detailed interior with minifigure action spread across examination rooms, offices, intensive care units, staff rest areas, and the atrium coffee shop and play area.