BIG LEGO CASTLE ON DISPLAY.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

Three designers spent eight hours each this weekend building a castle in Thousand Oaks.

The 8-foot-tall Lego model of Cinderella's castle from Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., was constructed inside Club Disney by three master Lego model builders.

``The best thing is coming out here and working with the kids,'' said Francie Berger, Lego's art director of model design.

Berger and two fellow Lego masters were on hand to build the castle and help children with their own designs. Children of all ages helped the trio construct the castle, which will be on display at Club Disney through Jan. 2.

``It's basic fun,'' said Rich Fusick, a Lego model designer. ``It's imagination.''

The designers have an unlimited supply of Lego's interlocking plastic bricks, but they do not use any specially constructed parts in their work, Berger said.

``It's all standard elements that you can buy in sets,'' she said.

With commissioned models like Cinderella's castle, the builders get access to the architect's drawings of the actual structure in Orlando, Berger said. With other Lego models born out of their imagination, they first sketch a drawing of what they want the finished product to look like.

Members of the seven-member Lego model team travel to about a dozen special events a year, Berger said. The rest of the time they spend building models at the Lego headquarters in Enfield, Conn.

What's it like to spend eight hours a day playing with Lego bricks?

``This is my childhood fantasy come true,'' said Berger, who was one of the original American Lego modelers for the company. ``It was my favorite toy.''

Members of the modeling team have backgrounds rooted in design. Berger is an architect, and Fusick studied as an industrial designer.

When Fusick wanted to join the design team, his test was to create a Lego bust of Winston Churchill.

Fusick likes to show children that their imagination is all that limits their Lego designs.

``With one brick you really can't do much,'' he said. But when thousands upon thousands of them are laid on one another, he added, the results can be amazing.

The largest Lego structure Berger has built in her 14 years with the company is a clock tower at the Lego store in the Mall of America in Minnesota. The tower stands 24 feet tall and took four months to build.

Fusick just completed a full-size Indy race car that will go on display at Target stores around the country.

For Lego's 25th anniversary in the United States, the company will have a traveling show of tractor-trailers made from the colorful bricks.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) (Color in CONEJO only) Young builders are surrounded by various creations composed of Lego plastic bricks Sunday at the Lego Winter Wonderland exhibition at Club Disney in Thousand Oaks.

(2) Young hands snap blocks together to make a foundation.

(3) (Ran in SIMI and SAC only) Four-year-old May Darmon, left, and her sister Lean, 2, work on a skyscraper at the Lego exhibition.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News