newsminer.com

You might say that Ty Keltner is a real blockhead.

After more than a year of building, the MBA student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently completed a massive Lego replica of the campus’s Gruening Building.

“I could have built it in a week or so, but I had to wait for the pieces to arrive in the mail,” Keltner said.

The final product stands more than 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Keltner lost track of exactly how many blocks he used to create the miniature version of Gruening, but it’s made up of at least 2,000 special pieces with vertical and horizontal edges on them, 1,000 windows and 24 doors. The model, which cost him more than $1,100 out of pocket, is on display at the UAF gallery this week.

“My wife’s just happy not to have it on the kitchen table anymore,” said Keltner, who will graduate from UAF on Saturday.

A self-described “Lego artist,” Keltner, 27, has been building with the famous blocks since he was five. He has won multiple Lego contests at the Tanana Valley Fair with his renditions of a giant hand, a ghost and a piggy bank.

He was thinking of what to do for his next big Lego project one day while walking through the UAF campus when he saw the Gruening building and figured it would easily translate into Lego form because of its rather square shape.

However, Keltner, who tried to make his model as accurate as possible, did encounter some trouble with the railing on the building’s roof.

“Legos have their own structure,” he said. “When you build, you have to build to their rules. The bricks only bend their own ways.”

Keltner documented much of the building process on a Web site featuring a fictional Lego construction crew as well as Lego versions of UAF chancellor Steve Jones, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and local TV reporter Darryl Lewis. The site can be found at http://thekeltners.net/ty/LEGO/legogruening/INDEX.HTM.

After the miniature Gruening Building is taken off display on Friday, Keltner isn’t sure exactly what will become of it. He would like it to stay on permanent display at the university, but if no one from UAF shows interest in taking it, he said he’ll probably dismantle it.

Regardless of what becomes of his creation, he’s already looking at his next project, either a Lego mosaic, or possibly another UAF building. But if he took that route, would he consider rendering the whole campus in Lego form?

“I’ve thought about it,” he said with a laugh, “But I don’t think I would have room for it.”