NPR Headquarters - Washington, DC

“From NPR News in Washington, this is LEGO Edition!”

Millions of people across the United States tune their radios National Public Radio (NPR) for breaking news, interesting stories and entertainment.  With this LEGO Ideas project, you can bring a scale model of NPR’s beautiful new world headquarters into your own home.  

In 2013, NPR moved into its new world headquarters in the NoMa neighborhood of Washington, DC.  The structure combines seven stories of new construction with fully-renovated warehouse originally built in 1926.  This open, collaborative workspace designed by Hickok Cole Architects features state of the art broadcast studios, offices, and a 100,000 square foot newsroom.  The building’s commitment to sustainability incorporates many green building technologies, including the eco-roof featured in this model.

The LEGO model was designed to evoke the unique partnership between new and old structures that make up the NPR World Headquarters.  The bricks used to depict the repurposed 1926 warehouse are all laid in horizontal layers and evoke a sense of age by using only traditional LEGO pieces and simple building techniques.  In contrast, the newly-built seven story section of the building is constructed with more advanced LEGO pieces and techniques to illustrate how architecture and construction continue to advance over time.

The model contains 622 pieces.  Its base dimensions are 20 studs by 18 studs.  The model is 28 plates tall (9-1/3 bricks).

Thank you for viewing my model!  The NPR Headquarters is a beautiful structure that seamlessly integrates new construction with an existing building.  Designing this model was a fun opportunity to combine my love of LEGO with my love NPR.  If you’d like to see it become a LEGO set in the future, please support, follow and share it with your friends. 

Special thanks to msx80 at Eurobricks for developing Bluerender, the excellent and easy-to-use rendering software used in conjunction with LDD for this project.