Benchling Double Helix

In late summer of 2024, a contact I made from the ComplexCon event a few years ago reached back out to ask for help in bringing an idea to life for one of their clients, Benchling. There was a thought to create a large scale Benchling logo out of LEGO bricks, but the scope shifted to making a double helix instead that would be the centerpiece of the conference and speak immediately to the subject matter of the clientele attending the event.

I worked with the team at Trademark Events to ensure the proper scale of the double helix, and arrived in Boston two days before the start of Benchtalk to build this on-site across approximately 44 hours. To my knowledge, it’s the largest double helix that’s been built out of LEGO bricks as of this writing!

• I researched the structure of DNA and its nitrogenous bases - adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine - to arrive at a color palette that was somewhat accurate to the colors themselves, yet created a composition that evoked the fun of LEGO bricks. I also duplicated the way the bases connected to each other through the brick, based on many diagrams I saw - either a roundish connection, or an arrow-shaped connection.

• The build is modular, so that it was easy and quick to replicate in the process of building. You’ll see that the build repeats itself every 90 degrees, and inside of that, each white section of the strand repeats itself.

• The base is built in 9 different sections, in order to make it easy to build as well as ship

• The build was originally meant to be taken 15 minutes away to their Boston office, but the client was so impressed by the build that it was decided on-site to ship it to their San Francisco headquarters!