A very interesting set is going to be released next month, called the #41325 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground. According to the LEGO Friends website, this set is the result of a LEGO Friends competition that took place earlier this year. The winner had their submission turned into an official LEGO set, which even includes a mini-doll designed and named after the winner! Details below. 🙂
The LEGO Friends Designer Contest was held between the end of December last year and the end of February this year, with the winner announced in mid-March. There was a huge number of entries to the contest, which you can see at the contest page, and there is an excellent interview with one of the judges that you can read here. After narrowing down the entries, the judges made their final decision based on ten attributes, covering everything from the appeal of the model, originality and aesthetics of the design, playability, and more. (Below is a picture of the ten finalists.)
The winner of the contest was 8-year-old Sienna from the UK, with her LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground submission (see below). Sienna had a chance to travel to Billund, Denmark with her family to work with LEGO designers to finalize her model to become an official LEGO set, and even had a mini-doll designed and named after her! At the LEGO Friends contest page there are some fun facts about Sienna and her model, which I have copied below.
➡ Sienna has been turned into a mini-doll to be available in the winning product. How cool is that?
➡ Name: Sienna
➡ Age: 8
➡ Lives in: London, UK with mom, dad and little brother, Austen
➡ Favorites:
- Sport: gymnastics, rock climbing
- Hobbies: LEGO bricks, art, music, piano
- After-school activity: ballet, Brownies (the Girl Guides – not the cakes!)
- Food: chocolate
- Color: turquoise
- LEGO Friend: Mia
➡ Five Fun Facts:
- Sienna found ideas for the Heartlake City Playground from the playground near her house and other fun playgrounds and parks she has been to.
- Heartlake City Playground has Sienna’s absolute favorite playground activity: a climbing wall! And another favorite: monkey bars!
- Sienna’s brother brought a teddy bear everywhere when the family came to the LEGO headquarters in Billund. It was his school class teddy bear and it ended up as a model sticker!
- Sienna’s mini-doll character has a brown pet dog named Pippa. It’s named after her grandmother’s new pet that she got for her birthday!
- Sienna is always busy with school, after-school clubs, and spending time with her friends and family. To find time to build the playground, she used every minute of spare time she could find. She even shut herself in her bedroom for a full Saturday to build the playground and only came out for lunch and dinner!
What a great opportunity for young LEGO fans to participate in such a great contest! And the winner can always proudly remember that she won a LEGO contest at only eight years old, that she directly worked with LEGO designers to make her model into an official LEGO set, and there is a LEGO mini-doll designed and named after her! Go, girl! Keep being awesome! 😀
Here is the official description of the set: LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground is the perfect place to have a blast with your besties. Centered around a tree house, it includes a climbing wall with colored holds and a twister slide. Push the functioning swings to make them go back and forth, spin the merry-go-round and make the 2 mini-doll figures go up and down on the seesaw. Help them take a seat on the benches as they watch Pippa the dog stretch her legs, then use the walkie-talkies to invite more friends to come out and play! Includes two mini-dolls: Mia and Sienna. 326 pieces. Price: $39.99 – AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER
I absolutely love this set! The LEGO Friends colors work great for this model, and it’s really nice to see how closely the final set resembles Sienna’s original submission. Lovely in every way! It is interesting to note that while there are some playground sets in the LEGO Friends line already, they are all small sets for pets (#41018 LEGO Friends Cat’s Playground, #41043 LEGO Friends Penguin’s Playground, and #41303 LEGO Friends Puppy’s Playground). There is also the #41011 LEGO Friends Stephanie’s Soccer Practice, which is sort of a playground, and the LEGO Friends Jungle sets and LEGO Friends Adventure Camp sets have some slides, tree houses, and rock climbing walls, however this is the first time LEGO is releasing a traditional playground in the LEGO Friends line, thanks to Sienna!
As I mentioned above, the #41325 LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground is going to be available in September. In the meantime, you can also check out the newly released LEGO Friends Ski Resort sets, which are also very awesome. See the full selection at the LEGO Friends section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Friends Heartlake City Playground? And what do you think of the contest, the submissions, and the finalists? Did you participate in the contest? Or do you know someone who did? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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Oh, wow! We didn;t know about this contest, so we missed out, but congratulations to Sienna! Her set is very cool!
Very nice set. And kudos to the Lego designers for keeping the design so close to Sienna’s submission.
Yeah, I noticed that too! Very impressive! It’s always interesting to see how professional LEGO designers handle a fan-submitted creations.
I would love to see more collaborations like this between lego and their young fans! Collaborations with children like this contest are what makes lego such a unique and loved brand. I can’t imagine how happy Sienna must be, and she can relish the memories for the rest of her life.
Yes, totally agree! 😀
Congratulations to Sienna! This is such a great idea and a very nice set! She even has her name on the box! 😀
Congratulations to Sienna and to the other finalists, and well done to each and every kid that submitted an entry. I agree that this is a fantastic move by TLG. This set is adorable, a perfect fit for almost any city layout, and looks very playable. I will definitely be buying one. Do you know if they will be on general release, or will it be exclusive to S@H?
Alison,
It will be exclusive to Toys’R’Us stores.
Possibly also on S@H … we’ll see Sep 1st!
Thanks for clarifying that. 🙂
I get some Fabuland vibes from this set. That theme had a lot of sets like this, featuring amusement parks and playgrounds.
Yes, that’s very true! 😀