Millions of children grow up playing with Legos, but for doctoral student Luke Lyons, his passion for the tiny bricks still goes strong.  
Lyons submitted a modular design for a 1930s inspired high school to Lego for production in March and has garnered nearly 2,000 supporters since.
“I’ve played with Legos all my life, but the school that I built was my first attempt [at designing],” Lyons said.  “It started as a project in one of my doctoral classes where we did a history of a school building, and I chose to do the 1930 Navasota High School because I taught high school in Navasota and I really like the old building.”
The architect who designed Navasota High School, Frederick E. Giesecke, designed iconic buildings on Texas A&M’s campus, including the Academic Building, Halbouty Geosciences Building and Cushing Library. Giesecke was head of the Architecture department from 1904 until 1912.
Class of 1886 and former captain of the Corps of Cadets, Giesecke graduated with a mechanical degree at the age of 17 and was appointed to the head of the Department of Mechanical Drawing two years later. There, he helped develop some of the first curriculum for the College of Architecture.
Giesecke left Texas A&M to study architectural design at MIT and Cornell University.  He finally returned in 1927 where he worked until he died in 1953.
Lyons said he believes the unique design of the high  school has helped him gain so many supporters so quickly.
While most modular buildings are designed on 32 by 32 baseplates, Lyons used multiple baseplates for a 64 by 32 layout.  
“To me, it was impossible to build a school in such a confined space,” Lyons said.
Lyons said he found creative ways to make the project personal.
“The colors were neat and different.  I put lions [on the front of the school] because my last name being Lyons, I thought that was a nice touch.”
According to the submission rules, a design cannot require new Lego molds, but Lyons said he got creative with the architectural details by borrowing from other Lego sets.
“The other part that’s really unique are these architectural designs that are on the front of the school,” Lyons said. “They’re actually from the prequel to ‘Star Wars.’  They’re the droid robot heads clipped in and flipped upside down. The lockers use a 1990s shutter piece that used to be for windows.”  
Lyons kept in mind the versatility that supporters would want to see in his design.  The picnic area is detachable, the school has a separate entrance  and the building fits perfectly as an end cap with its wider baseplate.
Through Lego Ideas, the online community that supports potential Lego designs, the company has created several designs nearly or currently available for purchase, including the “Ghostbuster”car, “Wall-E” and “The Big Bang Theory” sets.
If Lyon’s design gains 10,000 supporters by March 2017, the proposal will be reviewed for potential distribution.