Contact: Emily Slater
805-266-0208; emslater@calpoly.edu

Computer science major Alex Sahli’s Italian Riviera design is one of fewer than 70 fan creations ever turned into an official Lego set

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Most Lego sets are dreamed up in Denmark by teams of professional designers. This summer, one of the company’s newest releases came from an unlikely place: the imagination of Alex Sahli, a computer science student at Cal Poly.

His Italian Riviera build, a 3,251-piece village of pastel homes and cobbled streets, is now on shelves worldwide, complete with his name and a photo of him holding the set in the instruction manual. Priced at $299, the set was inspired by his travels in Italy.

For Sahli, a resident of Portland, Oregon, the accomplishment grew out of a lifelong love of Lego.

“I’ve been a fan my whole life,” he said. “I remember being 2 or 3 at my grandparents’ house in Seattle. They gave me the Universal Building Set 566, and I couldn’t put it down. I’d build a house, a car, whatever I could imagine.”

What began with those childhood builds eventually led to models displayed in Denmark, at Legoland and at the Lego House near company headquarters in Billund.

Sahli submitted the Italian Riviera to Lego Ideas at the end of high school, knowing the odds were slim. Thousands of projects are uploaded each year, but only those with 10,000 supporters advance to review. Since 2008, the platform has turned just 67 fan projects into official Lego sets. Sahli’s Italian Riviera became the 67th, advancing through review and months of revisions before reaching shelves three years later.

“At first I thought it was a joke,” he said. “It took a couple of days to sink in.”

When Lego announced the set, Sahli shared the video with his extended family at their annual retreat in Oregon.

“It was a fun, full-circle moment,” he said, “from getting my first set to sharing one with my family.”

Lego Ideas designers earn a 1% royalty on the total net sales of their set and receive 10 complimentary copies — perks that came with Sahli’s milestone release.

As the Italian Riviera moved toward production, Sahli worked closely with Lego’s team on the final design. Over the course of a year, he joined calls to discuss adjustments, sometimes dialing in from a café in Lisbon or an Airbnb in Ghana during Cal Poly’s Semester at Sea.

“They got my input for the final design,” he said. “I was happy with the changes they made.”

Part of the fun of the Italian Riviera set is spotting the surprises tucked inside. Sahli added personal touches: a tiny painting of a Tuscan villa, numbered stickers referencing his birthday, a lucky number and his Semester at Sea voyage, No. 134. And when he spotted the minifigure version of himself, a tourist with a camera in hand, Sahli couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ve made it in the Lego world,” he said. “Can’t ask for more than that.”

Fans can follow Sahli’s latest designs on Instagram: @galaxybrickworks.
 

Top photo: Cal Poly computer science student Alex Sahli holds the official Lego Italian Riviera set he designed, a 3,251-piece model inspired by his travels in Italy. The build is the 67th fan design to be produced as an official Lego set.

Photo courtesy Alex Sahli