There’s too much Lego in the world to keep track of, much less look after should you decide to break down the sets and venture forth into using the toy as it was originally intended – for creative play. That’s not to say you shouldn’t keep your moon rocket / Sagrada Família / Olivia Rodrigo stage set or whatever intact, but if you do find yourself with a pile of random bricks, how best to sort them?
Brickle Lego sorter in cream with optional shelves and stool
Enter the Brickle Lego sorter, an evolution of one family’s well-crafted solution into a product anyone can buy, blending contemporary lines with simple, analogue brick sifting. The Brickle was developed by the Newland brothers, engineer Matt, nano-scientist Ben and LSE graduate Geoffrey.
Large Brickle Lego sorted in black
Resembling a handsome plan chest, the unit was designed by Matt Newland, currently working in the yachting industry. Manufactured in Cardigan, Wales, the units feature a perfectly sized construction surface on the top above four drawers. The top plate includes three or five rectangular slots into which you scoop the Lego (or Legos, depending which side of the Atlantic you’re reading this on).
Large Brickle Lego sorted in oak
The internal mechanism is hardly rocket science. Aside from the uppermost drawer, which has a variety of differently sized and shaped compartments for storing key pieces, figures, etc, the two middle trays are drilled with an array of medium and small holes at the front edge of each drawer.
Smaller pieces fall all the way through to the lowermost drawer, medium-sized pieces in the drawer above and so on. Give each drawer a rattle back and forward and the Lego inside cascades down to its final resting place based on its size.
The unit sorts Lego pieces by size; cream version, £1,850
Admittedly, Brickle hasn’t exactly innovated with the idea of a Lego sorter– you can buy numerous types of stacking and sorting crates and storage boxes. What it has done is excel in the execution. Rather than rely on plastic, the company builds its units from FSC-certified birch plywood, with a painted option (cream or black) or a natural oak veneer finish.
The uppermost tray provides storage for special pieces and Minifigures
The sorting units are available in two sizes, small and regular, with a matching set of shelves that can be slotted into the upper level for display. There are also stacking stools as well. The company will also take special requests, bravely offering up the entire RAL chart and colours from other paint manufacturers to create a unique piece.
The larger Brickle units are a metre wide, 65cm deep and 56cm high and can hold around 15kg of Lego pieces (between 10 to 18,000 pieces, according to the notoriously unreliable internet). It weighs in at a hefty 56kg – no corners have been cut in the manufacturing process. The smaller 40kg ‘Bach’ unit is only 63cm wide but the same height and depth, with space for 9kg of Lego.
Both have been designed to stand up to the rigours of play, along with the accompanying accessories. For adult and child builders alike, the Brickle is an elegant storage solution, one that might cut down on the perennial problem of Lego underfoot and help drive creative reinterpretation of the Danish manufacturer’s dizzying panoply of sets, old and new.
Brickle Lego sorter, from £1,460 for small version, Brickle.co, @Brickle.co