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Johor Baru. The Taj Mahal is almost done, while Holy Light Church in Johor Baru and the Malaysian High Court have been completed.

But the biggest challenge may simply be carrying them out of the workshop.

At the Model Building Center in Johor Baru, a team of 32 builders, the youngest of whom is 22, is labouring with some unusual materials - 30 million Lego bricks.

Inside the nondescript two-story building, each builder sits at his or her workstation working on different models. The hum of machines is noticeably absent, as each model is painstakingly put together by hand.

Silver-colored tubes hang overhead to suck in fumes from the glue used to put the bricks together. Different piles of bricks are laid out in nearby cartons.

The builders are working day and night to complete 15,000 Lego model structures for the $256 million Legoland Malaysia, which is slated to open late next year.

Singaporeans will be able to get there via the Tuas Second Link, which is just a 15-minute drive from the park.

Other iconic Asian structures you can expect to see include Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin buildings in the world.

The Taj Mahal alone required 42,500 bricks and 3,000 man-hours to assemble.

The 31 ha attraction will be the sixth Legoland theme park in the world and the only one in Asia. The five parks had a combined attendance of more than 6.5 million visitors last year.

Lego is a line of construction toys first made in Denmark in the 1940s.

The Malaysian builders were selected from 1,000 participants in two competitions held in Malaysia in the last two years.

The first six successful candidates, termed pioneers, attended a 10-week training program at Legoland California.

One of them is supervisor Mohamed Firdaus, 26, who gave up a job as an engineering research assistant to join the Lego team.

"You learn something new every day. There is always another way to build," he says. He has been a Lego model builder for 11/2 years.

The job sounds remarkably similar to constructing an actual building these days, using special software to generate a 3-D version of the structure and a Lego graph before the actual construction.

"It requires a lot of planning so that you don't waste man-hours. You also need to take the number of bricks required and the weight into consideration, because they must be moved eventually," says Mr Mohamed.

Khairunnadia Kamarudin, 25, is one of seven women in the team of builders.

"It was quite hard and tedious at first. But Lego models are now a medium for me to express my knowledge and patience," says Khairunnadia, who studied industrial design in Malaysia.

Legoland will be the centerpiece of Medini Lifestyle, a lifestyle and entertainment hub.

Catering to families with children between the ages of two and 12, the park will feature more than 40 rides and attractions.

While prices have not been set, developers say they will be competitive with attractions like Universal Studios Singapore and Hong Kong Disneyland.

Siegfried Borst, senior director of operations for the park, is counting on the "universal appeal" of Lego to draw visitors.

"Our target market is children aged two to 12, and fortunately, there are many more children being born every year," he says.

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 2553 5055.