What is better than one LEGO modular building? Two LEGO modular buildings and make it a corner building! Kale Frost show us what an upscale Birch Books might have looked like. Kale stayed true to the official set design for most of his creation. He did however add a few little touches to make this creation truly stand out. Complete with a signboard in the shape of a book to emphasize that they are selling books inside. The lettering above the entrance also is a nice touch and it is executed very well using the new curved 1×1 slope. I do wonder what the S would look like had the curved 1×1 slope been used there as well. He further added a brick-built pillar box which goes great with the British vibe of the building. Now, all we can do is wait for an upscale version of the 107 house next to the Birch Books.
Tag Archives: Architecture
Moroccan Riad Courtyard
Some people do not mind having studs showing in their creations. Some people strongly dislike having studs showing in their creations. Some people, like Andrew Tate, decide to have the studs showing with a purpose. In this latest model by Andrew, the studs are meant to represent the tiles on the wall. The effect sure is stunning. I am also a big fan of mixing the different shades of blue. LEGO has been pushing out a lot of softer colors ever since the release of LEGO Friends. And it sure is nice to see these colors getting incorporated into non-Friends builds. When it came to the flooring Andrew decided to go full studs-not-on-top which means that most of the floor is held on by gravity and willpower. It must have been quite the challenge to lay this intricate floor pattern. There are a lot of details to discover and this most definitely is a creation that deserves to be zoomed in on.
Breaking ground and building models
Of course on Instagram and Flickr or wherever else LEGO collections and cities are shown off, one can find plenty of completed modulars and cars, maybe even some small construction vehicles, but Fuku Saku presents us with a highly detailed model of a construction site complete with a skeleton frame of a building and some great vehicles.
Saku’s vehicles are pretty detailed and are comprised of both large and small parts; an interesting part used in his dump truck would be the battle droid arm utilized on the truck’s backend. Overall both trucks make use of bricks and wheels in addition to a lot of slopes and tiles to achieve a smooth and completed look. The building frame behind the vehicles is notably comprised of many different types of plates but also includes bricks and tiling. In any case Saku’s model is a break from the usual completed buildings.
Beautiful on the outside and on the inside
I had to look really good to see that this model by Tong Xin Jun is built and rendered digitally. The fact that only existing colors were used certainly helped fool the eye. This cute little house is complete. It comes with its own vineyard and wine cellar, and what more could a person ask for during a pandemic? The brick build base makes this model look very polished. Creating a difference in texture between the path towards the house and the lawn adds to the feeling that the lawn is filled with autumn leaves. And have you seen those roof dormers? The best thing about this house is that it is fully furnished from the basement to the attic. And the furniture wasn’t an afterthought. It is designed beautifully. Sometimes a fan of LEGO uses a part in a way it was not designed for, but it just makes sense. The round 2×2 tile with wood grain pattern used as a cutting board/charcuterie plank is an example of this.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your…long chain of bricks
A classic fairy tale gets the LEGO treatment with this towering six foot tall brick-built minifigure-scale structure created by Martin Harris and inspired by the Disney film Tangled. Not only do we get the famous tower in this work, we also get a nice landscape – the forest in which Rapunzel was tucked away, complete with colorful trees and a nice riverbed utilizing many nature-inspired elements including flower pieces, plants, and tree-limb elements in varying colors.
A peaceful house in the Greek countryside
Γεια! — That’s “hello” in Greek, which is what I would say if I were visiting this Greek house in person. Built by creator Toltomeja, the Greek House is a fantastic portrayal of typical dwellings in Greece.
My favorite part about the house is the white walls and stairwells. It’s such a classical look. The tile flooring on the patio is very well done. I appreciate the variety of colors used to indicate foot traffic over the years. An additional sign of the house’s age is the vine work growing up the side of the stairs.
This was a gorgeous LEGO model to look at. If it was a submission on LEGO ideas, I would definitely throw in my support!
A corner shop to rid all builder’s block
With the closure of shops and buildings, it’s been difficult for some builders to find their architectural inspiration. However, some have found ways to avoid that awful builder’s block. Drawing from both imagination and inspiration from Google Maps’ street view of Amsterdam, Thomas van Urk (aka Utanapishtim, aka Thomassio) has created yet another marvelous city modular. As always, this corner building looks incredibly clean and packed with architectural detail. Its dark tan facade is textured with masonry bricks, with a good balance of light gray bullions in its trim. The symmetry in the building overall is also incredibly satisfying to look at, not to mention the beautiful accented dark red windows at the front.
Like this builder’s style? Take a look at Thomas van Urk’s Fright Knights tribute, which I assure, you will find frighteningly amazing.
Ariandel inspired microscale church
I really enjoy it when a builder thinks outside the box. Nathan Hake shows us that he is very capable of doing so. For his micro-scale LEGO church, he used wheel cover with y shaped spikes for the main round window in the church tower. There are ice scates on the roof and the entrance is a plate with tooth which is brilliant in its simplicity. My guess is that this church is gothic inspired because it matches the 5 key architectural elements: large stained glass windows, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and ornate decoration. The ribbed vaults are a bit hard to spot from the outside, but we can all imagine them there, right?
A good ol’ apartment building in Theed, Naboo
I think it’s safe to say that many fans’ fascination with Star Wars revolves around the universe itself with its interesting planets offering eye-catching landscapes and architecture. Anthony’s LEGO model of an apartment dwelling on Naboo, while not an exact building from the films, reimagines the aesthetic of Naboo’s capital city, Theed and projects it onto an everyday building.
This model certainly is referential to modular type builds, but two features really hone in on the Star Wars vibe. The obvious one being the clone trooper minifigures on patrol, and the other – the sand green dome which is a signature element of Naboo’s architecture. The dome is definitely my favorite part of this build, comprised of two sand green dish pieces laid on top of a square base made with sand green slopes, tiles, and bricks. The rest of the structure is quite standard; composed of bricks, slopes, and tiles as well as some more ornamental elements which can be seen in the archways, windows, and balcony. Quite honestly Anthony’s modular could fit into a larger brick-built Naboo cityscape or just as well a regular LEGO city, its specificity as well as its versatility is much appreciated.
Cooking up something special with bananas
The LEGO banana element is not necessarily the most useful piece, right? It has only one connection point, at one end, and no matter what you do with it, it still looks like a banana. That has not stopped LEGO from using it all over the place, whether that be gold bananas in Ninjago sets, grey ones in Mixels, or white, teal, and dark blue from various Chinese festival sets; but it still looks like a banana. But when I was taking my almost-two-year-old to the bathroom the other day, I realized that the handles on the faucet looked remarkably banana-like, with the same curve and general shape. So that got me thinking: could I make a kitchen that used a banana sink? In my own collection, I have only yellow and gold bananas, so it had to be a gold sink, but brass is coming back in, right? Or was it in, and now it’s back out again?
The rest of the kitchen came together around the sink, scaled to that. It’s loosely based off of the kitchens from my last two houses in layout, though the dishwasher should be to the right of the sink for better accuracy. It ended up using almost all my dark brown tiles and bricks and plates (as well as slopes!) for the cabinets, so I’m glad I did not go bigger, and if you look closely at the sand green walls, you’ll see that they are largely made of 1×2 plates. I am not looking forward to taking this one apart. The ceiling came last, but I knew I needed one, since I wanted an immersive shot, and those always look more convincing with the ceiling and a controlled light source. So I made it studded, to replicate the horrible textured ceilings that so many houses have (including my own), and made the light for the photograph come through the ceiling fixture, with a little reflecting in from the window and the banana moon (which would have been better in white, admittedly). I’m fairly pleased with the build, though I do think the floor is ugly, and so does my wife, but that’s the tiles I had in abundance, so that’s what I used. Maybe we’ll remodel it someday.
If you like this build, you’ll probably like this collection of LEGO kitchen builds. And don’t forget to tune in to the Iron Forge competition, where the banana is the seed part.
Castro Theatre, the heart of Eureka Valley
One of my favorite things about San Francisco is its architecture. Though shops have closed and the streets are nearly empty, some of the city’s most vibrant buildings still stand. Just off Market Street, you’ll find the Castro Theatre, whose majesty has been translated into LEGO by Jonathan Lopes. Since 1922, the Castro Theatre has hosted everything from queer cinema to silent film festivals at the center of San Francisco’s vibrant arts scene and historic LGBTQ+ district. Like in Jonathan’s model, you can’t miss its iconic neon signage and stunning Spanish-Baroque facade.
There’s a house on my street, and it looks real neat
There are times when a LEGO fan starts building, gets into the groove of things, then finds it hard to stop. Especially when the build is a small street that keeps growing with each mini modular building placed on it. When I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) attended my LUG‘s (LondonAFOLs) monthly meet-up via Zoom, the theme was mini modular buildings. Every year since 2007, LEGO released a large modular building, each of which can be arranged into a street layout. As a fifth anniversary to the lineup, LEGO created a microscale version of the first few buildings. I started to build a micro modular for the meet-up, and then I couldn’t help but build more. A few days after the meet-up, I ended up with a whole street.
Click to see each micro modular building in detail, along with the build process!