Places in my LEGO maps

Thanks for following along! My LEGO mapping journey began with a simple question: how far could LEGO bricks be pushed as a medium for cartography? Before 2024, I had never seriously considered LEGO for mapping. What began as small experiments soon grew into an ongoing project shared through libraries, museums, universities, GIS Day programs, cartography conferences, LEGO-fan conventions, toy stores, and many other community events and public spaces.

The project has gradually developed along two main directions. My topographic maps explore terrain and bathymetry through simplified forms, elevation levels, and physical depth, while my thematic maps use LEGO-inspired visual languages to represent political geography, cities, transportation, climate, and other geographic phenomena. Depending on the scale, subject, and purpose, each map may become a physical build, a 3D render, or a 2D graphic.

My approach grows directly from my background in GIS and cartography. I treat LEGO not simply as a material for reproducing the shape of a place, but as a constrained cartographic language: studs, bricks, colors, layers, and grids become tools for abstraction, classification, symbolization, and storytelling. These constraints inevitably involve trade-offs, but they are also what make the design process so interesting.

I see particular potential in LEGO mapping for geographic education and public engagement. Maps built from a familiar and playful medium can make terrain, scale, spatial patterns, and geographic relationships more tangible, especially for children and audiences who may not normally engage with cartography. At the same time, there is no single way to make a LEGO map. I am always excited to see others develop their own approaches, and I hope more people will experiment with what maps + bricks can become.

If you would like to explore the stories and ideas behind the project, you can read my featured interview in Esri ArcUser, watch my 8-minute lightning talk at NACIS, or watch my hour-long invited talk for GIS Colorado. I would love to hear your ideas and feedback as this LEGO mapping journey continues!

A LEGO QR code of my website