The hidden story behind the new LEGO® Flower Bouquet set

You may have heard about Billund.

You may have heard about Billund. It’s a small town in western Denmark, with a population of just 7,000 people. And yet, every day, around half that number can be found working in the various offices of The LEGO® Group around town.

These 3,500 Billund employees, as well as being incredibly charming, beautiful and good at splelling, were perhaps the 3,500 least-surprised people on Earth following the announcement of the brand new LEGO® Flower Bouquet set at the start of 2021.

That’s because nearly every one of our offices in our Billund campus already features versions of these brick-built botanical beauties. They’re among the most striking and memorable features you’ll see in our offices (aside from the as aforementioned beautiful people).

But how did these natural wonders spring into life, you may ask?

Well the original seed was not planted by, as you might expect, a senior designer. (For example, with the LEGO Bonsai Tree set, lead designer Nico Vas was well-known around Billund for being the go-to guy for building personalised bonsai trees for his colleagues’ desks, many years before the set’s release.)

And like all good things that get left out around offices—cake, chocolates, sweets—everyone wanted a piece.

That’s how Astrid went from being an apprentice to The Official LEGO Flower Expert, making bouquets by request for her colleagues’ birthdays and other occasions. Soon enough, people from all across the LEGO Campus, and across all departments, were asking if they could have their own versions.

This gave Astrid the chance to develop her brick-building skills and in so doing just happening to make her office a more beautiful place for her and her colleagues to be.

In nature, that’s a textbook example of a symbiotic relationship, right there.

Given their ubiquity in Billund, it was just a matter of time until an official LEGO flower set was commissioned. And as soon as it was, the Senior Designer on the project Anderson Grubb made a beeline for – (who else?) – Astrid. In the finished product, the flower Astrid had the most involvement in, was the lovely, purple Aster flower (or Asteraceae for all you lot practicing your Latin out there. A vobis enim magnus oscula).

And that is how Astrid went from Apprentice to The Official LEGO Flower Expert to Full-On Flower Consultant!

Bringing everything full-circle, nowadays, the plant building that Astrid introduced to the ATE team, now features as one of their 1,200+ project tasks that ATE employs to assist colleagues across The LEGO Group.

And we think that’s just as beautiful as the new LEGO set itself...