Alex Sahli’s Italian Riviera design is one of fewer than 70 fan creations ever turned into an official Lego set 

Most Lego sets are dreamed up in Denmark by teams of professional designers. This summer, one of the company’s newest releases came from an unlikely place: the imagination of Alex Sahli, a computer science student at Cal Poly. 

His Italian Riviera build, a 3,251-piece village of pastel homes and cobbled streets, is now on shelves worldwide, complete with his name and a photo of him holding the set in the instruction manual. Priced at $299, the set was inspired by his family’s travels in Italy. 

The project grew out of a lifelong love of Lego. “I’ve been a fan my whole life,” he said. “I remember being 2 or 3 at my grandparents’ house in Seattle. They gave me the Universal Building Set 566, and I couldn’t put it down. I’d build a house, a car, whatever I could imagine.” 

He submitted the Italian Riviera to Lego Ideas at the end of high school, knowing the odds were slim. Thousands of projects are uploaded each year, but only those with 10,000 supporters advance to review. Since the platform launched in 2008, only 67 fan designs have made it all the way to production as official Lego sets. Sahli’s became the 67th, moving through review and revisions before reaching shelves three years later. 

When he learned Lego had selected his design, Sahli thought at first it was a joke. “It took a couple of days to sink in,” he said. 

Once the set was announced, Sahli played the video for his extended family at their annual retreat in central Oregon. “It was a fun, full-circle moment,” he said, “from getting my first set to sharing one with my family.” 

As part of the Lego Ideas program, designers receive a 1% royalty on the total net sales of their set and 10 complimentary copies. Those perks came with Sahli’s milestone release. 

The Italian Riviera isn’t Sahli’s only design. Over the past few years, he has developed six projects for Lego Ideas, ranging from a miniature model of the Seven Wonders of the World to a botanical terrarium, a Tuscan villa, a log cabin and even a scene from the video game Animal Crossing, inspired by the long hours he spent playing during the pandemic. Three of those — the terrarium, the villa and the cabin — each hit 10,000 votes, but Italian Riviera is the only one made into an official set. 

His success has earned him recognition in the Lego community. Two of his models are now on display in Billund, Denmark: one at Legoland and another at the Lego House near company headquarters. He has also become more active in the broader fan community, attending conventions and even signing sets. 

For Sahli, Lego has always been more than toys. “It’s the art of engineering,” he said. “There are some limitations, but not enough to inhibit creativity. The open-endedness lets you explore a lot of STEM concepts.” 

He also sees parallels to his computer science studies at Cal Poly. “Like a Lego set, coding is about putting pieces together. You modularize, build subassemblies, plan ahead and sometimes refactor or optimize,” he said. 

The Italian Riviera set reflects that blend of engineering and imagination, as well as Sahli’s travels through Liguria. Pastel homes rise above narrow streets, their balconies, shutters and textured walls echoing the region’s cliffside towns. At the base, shops and a small beach round out the village, while the staggered angles of the buildings give it a lived-in feel. 

While the design was finalized, Sahli stayed involved. Over the course of a year, he joined calls with Lego’s team to discuss adjustments, sometimes dialing in from a café in Lisbon or an Airbnb in Ghana during Cal Poly’s Semester at Sea. “They got my input for the final design,” he said. “I was happy with the changes they made.” 

Part of the fun of the Italian Riviera set is spotting the surprises tucked inside. Sahli added personal touches that connect the model back to his own story: a tiny painting of a Tuscan villa, numbered stickers referencing his birthday, a lucky number and his Semester at Sea voyage, No. 134. And when he spotted the minifigure version of himself, a tourist with a camera in hand, Sahli couldn’t help but laugh. 

“I’ve made it in the Lego world,” he said. “Can’t ask for more than that.” 

Fans can see more of Sahli’s builds on Instagram, where he posts as @galaxybrickworks. 

By Emily Slater