LEGO releases one new modular set a year, but every so often there’s a set that is modular-adjacent that fans of the line wish could better integrate with their collection. The Chinese New Year restaurant, French Cafe, and especially 2023’s lovely Friends Botanical Garden (which predated the minifig scale Botanical Garden which is even more modular-adjacent). Modular builder Melanie found a solution to integrate the Friends garden into her city by turning the conservatory a two-story corner unit using a design by MingBrick. I adore the park bench and cherry blossom tree at the base of the stairs adding a parklet at street level that fits perfectly with the sidewalk aesthetic of other modulars.
This is Friends erasure and I will not stand for it! But seriously though, this is clearly NOT the Botanical Garden from the Icons theme, it’s obviously the Friends set put directly on a bottom level. The cherry blossom tree that you adore is directly from the set as well! But yeah, just put it on out there as the Icons set. Let the adults keep imagining they’re the only customers that matter.
You are totally right. I’ll fix the article. Ironically, I own the Friends set and not the other one. I’ll update the article to correct this mistake!
You link to your review of set 21353 The Botanical Garden, but in fact this build is a modification of a completely different set, 41757 Botanical Garden, a Friends set that came out a year earlier. Additionally, if one reads the description of Melanie’s Instagram post, one will note that this is not in fact her own original creation, but a modification of set 41757 by MingBrick, instructions for which are available on Rebrickable. To misidentify the original set is a careless but understandable mistake, but to misattribute a build to the wrong creator is unacceptable; please correct this. Many thanks.
Thanks again for catching the errors. I should have been more thorough in prepping the article. It’s been a busy week, but we’ll do better.
Sure would be nice if there were instructions for this model somewhere. It would be great to add to all the other Buildings in the modular city.
Thank you for your classy response, Jake. I was upset about other things, clearly, and I took this more personally than I should have. I love the site and reviews, thanks for your hard work!
@Michelle Gitchell: the instructions are on rebrickable:
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-213370/MingBrick/corner-botanical-garden/#details
US $15