First of all, I want to recognize that COVID-19 presents a very real threat to our safety and way of life. My thoughts are with everyone on the front lines fighting this virus, everyone working critical jobs to support our communities, everyone whose livelihoods are at risk, everyone who is nervous for the safety of family and friends, and everyone who is struggling in these ambiguous times.

I’ve been able to work from home for the last six weeks… relying on walks, bike rides, and gardening to keep me busy. I’ve been less motivated to create new content, but I have made a ton of smaller improvements throughout the website.

Updates to existing content:

• Unofficial LEGO Architecture Set Guide
  Added ‘Ikea Dresden’ by LEGO Certified Professional Rene Hoffmeister / BrickFabrik. (Thanks again to Christiaan Beem!)
• Meet the LEGO Masters… on Youtube, Instagram, and more
  Added additional content related to recent episodes and the show as a whole (plus a few more contestants’ social media accounts).
• LEGO Brick Labels
  Added an FAQ, including instructions to fix printing issues which were discovered with Mac OS.
• Brick List & Buying Guide for ‘The LEGO Architect’ book
  Since #21050 LEGO Architecture Studio set was retired, I’ve updated this guide to help people purchase all of the parts that they would have gotten with that set.

Visual Improvements:

• A subtle studded light gray background is shown on large displays (over 1200px wide).
• Articles with a ‘Featured image’ appear borderless on the Homepage, Category Archives, & Author Archives. (Before this change, the left edge of the image was aligned with the text.)
• A description for each category is now shown on the respective Category Archives. (A “show all” button was also added to upper-left corner of the Archive Pages.)
• Updated pages for The LEGO Architect, additional resources, and the 9 foreign-language editions to fix bugs and increase consistency with the rest of the website.
• The Table of Contents is less distracting and works better on smaller screens. (It is only shown on long articles/pages.)
• For comments without an avatar, I replaced the generic image with the silhouette of a LEGO head.

Visitors are automatically redirected to the secure version of this website located at https://brickarchitect.com (The “s” stands for secure.)

Benefits of secure websites:

• Ensures the content you read and text you enter on the site remains private.
• Instills confidence that you are accessing the genuine Brick Architect site.
• Signals to new users that Brick Architect is a top quality website that is willing to invest in the latest technologies.

Jeannie is a lifelong LEGO devotee, joining us from nearby Portland, Oregon.

In addition to a lifetime collecting and building LEGO, Jeannie has collected a diverse set of skills and interests which include degrees in Architecture and a degree in Culinary Arts from Le Cordon Bleu. She is involved in a local LEGO User’s Group, and organizes the Architecture theme at Bricks Cascade, Portland’s annual LEGO convention which takes place in March.

Brick Architect runs on WordPress, which can be customized using themes. Because there are so many different devices and web browsers out there, I can’t test every possible configuration.

Noteworthy improvements:

• Support for short articles (asides), which are displayed in their entirety on the homepage rather than requiring you to click to see the whole article. (This post is an aside.)
• Updated header image, which is now indented correctly on small screens.
• Improved Author byline, with photo of author shown on both homepage and articles.
• Categories are now shown on homepage and articles, but only on large screens.
• Font sizes scale more predictably to larger and smaller screen sizes.

Amy is an elementary school teacher who has built the occasional LEGO set over the years, and keeps a large bag of LEGO bricks in her classroom to help her students survive rainy day recess (which is pretty common in rainy Seattle.) She loves to travel to see natural beauty and visit historic landmarks, and is slowly learning to appreciate architecture too.

Alexander is a Seattle-based mathematician and a life-long Technic freak. He is fascinated by mechanisms in all their complexity and simplicity, especially when applied to kinetic art and mechanical computation, and of course, especially when implemented in LEGO. He is our fifth writer.

Christine is our third writer, joining us from New Zealand. She was re-introduced to LEGO through her two daughters, whose fondness for LEGO Elves, Friends, and Disney Princess sets has brightened her LEGO color palette considerably. She works as a town planner and with her husband’s background in Architecture and a shared interest in history she has had the opportunity to visit many of the world’s greatest landmarks.

Lydia is the mother of 5 kids, and she enjoys building models from the LEGO Creator and Architecture themes. Her creative focus is to re-create LDS Temples using LEGO bricks, a project that has grown to include over 50 models! We’re excited to help her get started with blogging by writing articles for Brick Architect. She is our second new writer and I’m excited to have her joining us.

Michael is the father of two boys that love LEGO almost as much as he does. A sales rep for the publishing industry by day, in the evenings his focus shifts between Classic Space (his childhood favorite), Star Wars, and Architecture. While he finds sorting really satisfying, joining his local LUG has inspired him to create more MOC’s. He is the first of several new writers that will be introduced in the coming weeks.