{"id":9244,"date":"2019-01-01T16:56:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T08:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/?p=9244"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:57:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T08:57:34","slug":"shes-on-a-piece-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2019\/01\/01\/shes-on-a-piece-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"She’s on a Piece Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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LEGO\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0bricks may be just toys for some, but Ms Xylvie Wong has turned her passion for them into her career \u2014 and a successful one at that. Her life-sized creation of a HDB void deck scene, complete with the uniquely Singaporean, old-school stone table and a bird cage hanging from the ceiling, made entirely of LEGO\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0bricks received so much attention that she was invited to display it in the United States. \u201cI did that project for fun, just because I wanted to,\u201d the 35 year-old says. \u201cIt was surprising and rewarding to be able to exhibit my work overseas.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Brick models of famous monuments created by Ms Wong.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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More recently, she and two friends created miniature replicas of local monuments for the \u201cBuilding History: Monuments In Bricks And Blocks\u201d exhibition, initiated by the National Heritage Board. These included the Central Fire Station, former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, Sultan Mosque and St Andrew\u2019s Cathedral, which is their tallest model, standing at 1.1m high. The travelling exhibition debuted at the Central Public Library in June 2018, before it was showcased at other libraries across Singapore. Says Ms Wong, \u201cIt showed people that you need not work with LEGO\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0bricks solely based on the instruction manual. You can be as creative as you want!\u201d<\/p>

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\u201cI want to provide a space for people to unleash their potential through exploration with bricks. I hope to inspire and nurture a new generation of creative kids, who will grow up to be creative adults.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>

Ms Xylvie Wong, co-founder of a retail and part-gallery space in Bugis.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/p>

Ms Wong has been a big LEGO\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0fan ever since receiving her first set of the bricks from her father at age two. But work is not all fun and games. In fact, the monument assignment required the trio to fly drones over the various buildings for a complete aerial view of the structures before they could proceed. The project took seven months to complete. Luckily, a hectic student life at NUS had equipped Ms Wong with time management skills and the ability to work under pressure. The effort, however, was worth the while and one that made perfect sense to the mother of an 8 year-old son. She says matter-of-factly, \u201cI have this need to just create, and so I do.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Ms Wong\u2019s son with her model of the National Gallery Singapore.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A HDB void deck scene made from bricks.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"\"BLOCK THE DATE\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>

The Little Brick Shop is conducting Singapore\u2019s first-ever brick convention \u2018Enblock\u2019 in April 2019. The event aims to bring together the ASEAN and East Asian brick-building community to showcase their creations, and learn from one another.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Photos by Ms Xylvie Wong.<\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through her creations, LEGO\u00ae designer Ms Xylvie Wong (Arts & Social Sciences \u201908) hopes to pave the way for, and inspire, a new generation of brick-builders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9244"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9276,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9244\/revisions\/9276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}