Kengo Kuma Backs Campaign to Turn V&A Dundee Into an Official LEGO Set
The architect behind V&A Dundee has thrown his weight behind a grassroots campaign to turn the Scottish design museum into an official LEGO set.
Kengo Kuma, the Japanese architect whose first UK building V&A Dundee is, endorsed the effort on 11 August 2026, according to a post by Dundee Culture on Facebook Dundee Culture, Facebook. The museum, which opened on the city's waterfront, is shaped to evoke a Scottish sea cliff — two angled halves of horizontal concrete slabs leaning together above the River Tay.
The campaign started with Brian McNicoll, founder of 532 Design, a mobile and web studio in Dundee. McNicoll designed and built a 2,900-piece LEGO replica of the building and submitted it to LEGO Ideas, the platform where fans pitch original models for potential production as retail sets Dezeen. The submission was officially accepted and went live on the platform, meaning supporters could begin voting for it Scottish Construction Now.
LEGO Ideas works on a milestone system: a project that reaches 10,000 supporters within a set window is reviewed by the company's design team, which decides whether to put it into production. As of 11 August, the V&A Dundee model was nearing 5,000 supporters — halfway to that review threshold Dundee Culture, Facebook.
The physical LEGO model went on display at the museum itself, where it caught the attention of local school pupils visiting the galleries V&A Dundee. McNicoll first announced the project on LinkedIn in January 2026, sharing images of the build and inviting the public to back it on the LEGO Ideas platform LinkedIn.
What makes the campaign unusual is having the building's own architect on side. LEGO Ideas projects rarely attract a public endorsement from the designer of the real-world structure being replicated, and Kuma's backing gives the bid a level of institutional credibility that most fan submissions lack.
V&A Dundee, part of the Victoria and Albert Museum network, opened in 2018 as the first V&A museum outside London. Kuma, whose practice is based in Tokyo, is also designing the New National Stadium in Tokyo, built for the 2020 Olympic Games.
The campaign now faces the familiar challenge of every LEGO Ideas project: converting a surge of attention into sustained votes. Projects that stall between milestone thresholds — 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 supporters — often expire before reaching review. The V&A Dundee build has roughly a year from its platform acceptance date to collect the remaining 5,000 votes needed for the LEGO review board to take a look.
