Tag Archives: Architecture

LEGO provides the perfect medium for recreating the buildings and landmarks of the world — LEGO has even released a line of official LEGO Architecture sets. Check out our coverage of the official sets, and don’t miss all the gorgeous architectural models created by LEGO fans from around the world.

Silly readers, bookshelves are for displaying LEGO!

Some builders go years without sharing any of their builds online, but the LEGO creations can be worth the wait. We featured a lovely LEGO Tardis by Alan McMorran way back in 2008 (and I had the pleasure of meeting Alan in person at BrickCon the next year). Alan is back with a fantastic bridge that spans shelves at two different levels in his study.

Alan tells me that the “Constantine Bridge” was inspired by the old London Bridge and the Ponte Vecchio in Venice — houses and their residents crowding the arch.

Click to see more of this great integration of LEGO and interior design

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Information superhighway

Originally, the so-called “information superhighway” was a metaphor. Information would still be flowing along telecom trunk lines, just like it had before. The amount of info available through those same old lines was the real story of the early 1990s. But fast forward a few decades, to a future imagined by Carter Baldwin and Simon Liu: there’s so much information that a highway can barely contain it. Miles and miles of high-speed cable, just below the actual roadway. I’m not sure what’s going on in the wild undergrowth beneath the infrastructure, but that doesn’t interest me nearly as much as the infrastructure itself. The tubes! The girders!

Gateway to LEGO brick wall building

Tim Schwalfenberg’s latest build, Wizard’s Gate, is a masterclass in both rock work and brick wall building. There are a lot of lovely techniques packed in to really make this model top class. In particular, the wall portion of the gate uses a technique that requires some off-setting techniques using the headlight brick and some patience with clips and tiles, but the finished look is really fantastic.

Tim has provided a breakdown of the technique used to create the brick wall effect. As Tim explains, “The wall is constructed using headlight bricks to achieve a half plate vertical offset and then alternating clips on 1×2 tiles to form the exterior wall It’s similar to many of legostrator’s awesome techniques.”

A brand new LEGO brand store

If you’re interested in LEGO, you’ve got to know everything about toy stores in your town or city. But Adeel Zubair knows about toy stores a lot more than any of us; he knew to build the perfect one.

Not only is this an outstanding modular building with an exterior worth being placed in one lane with the legendary Green Grocer, but also a masterpiece of store marketing — just have a look at what is hidden inside!

Here are the lovely wooden duck and the lovely green dragon on the first floor, while the ground floor is all about shelves full of the newest sets. And don’t forget to check out the awesome Pick-A-Brick wall! Many more pictures are in the album on Flickr!

Gini’s Home Electrical Store is now open on BrickHills Avenue

It is the early 1960s and we are going for a stroll down BrickHills Avenue with builder Andrew Tate. Andrew has created a lovely scene with Art Deco-inspired architecture centering on Gini’s home electrical store on the corner. There is definitely evidence of the source of inspiration being a movie theater, and Andrew mentions the Warner Beverly Hills theater and Sunset Boulevard theatre at Disney Studios in his own description.

This build is not just a façade, as Andrew has also designed some interior views. The image below is clearly from Gini’s home electrical store. It looks to be a source for colourful refrigerators, washing machines and expensive cookers — more than enough to meet the desires of a mini-housewife!

The Edge: Step into a LEGO painting

It’s not often that I see a LEGO creation and think to myself “this is art.” But Lukasz Wiktorowicz‘s most recent build, “the Edge” certainly is art. Using both classic architecture and surrealist imagery, Lukasz created an absolutely stunning build. The proportions on this thing are spot on and the details are ridiculously, well, detailed. But what really pushes this build over the top is Lukasz’s out-of-the-box building techniques.

Normally I’m a stickler for lining up LEGO bricks perfectly (90 or 180 degree angles only, people!). A little crease from a cattywampus brick in an otherwise smooth wall is a downright sin in my book. But Lukasz purposefully stacked the bricks in his four pillars all askew and the resulting texture is fantastic! Another creative feature of this build is the base. When I accumulate a boxful of seemingly useless bricks, I shove them to the back of my shelf and forget about them. Instead of doing the same, Lukasz used those ball socket bricks to create an unconventional base for his build that makes the whole thing look like it is floating. Well done all around.

This roof is driving me bananas!

In yet another repudiation of the idea that LEGO pieces are only good for the purpose originally intended by their designers, alego alego has built a yellow thatched roof made entirely of LEGO bananas. And the cabin itself is built almost completely from brown Technic connectors. The base of this treehouse is also quite lovely, with a stone pathway, well, and lovely little bushes.

My only critique is that a lovely LEGO creation like this feels a little underpopulated without some characters to enjoy the scenery.

LEGO lighthouse shines brightly

Kołobrzeg Lighthouse is located in Kołobrzeg on the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. Piotr Machalski has build a very nice rendition of this landmark in LEGO, capturing its curvaceous architecture in brick form. The real lighthouse is is a red brick cylindrical tower that emits a light that can been seen nearly 30km away. There are lots of techniques for creating curves from LEGO, many of which hail from builders who favour castle-themed creations, but it’s always nice to see similar techniques used for other types of building. The main central portion uses a mix of round and regular bricks but the outer wall is all about the power of bending LEGO.

This lighthouse we blogged previously uses a similar technique as the main tower in Piotr’s build.

Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of the Big Shoulders

If Carl Sandberg had lived to see the skyscrapers of modern Chicago, I’m sure he would have been no less proud of his city than he was when he wrote his poem “Chicago” more than a hundred years ago. Rocco Buttliere has captured the Chicago skyline in LEGO with this substantial group of microscale buildings, including the John Hancock Center. The looming, iconic buildings certainly dominate the skyline, but I love the smaller buildings and landscaping that Rocco has included, like the Lookinglass Theatre building and the Seneca Playlot Park. My favorite LEGO building, though, is 900 North Michigan with lovely green glass.

As fantastic as the buildings look in the photo above, I love this top-down look — as though you’re flying over in a helicopter.

See lots more photos in Rocco’s photostream on Flickr.

A LEGO factory built of LEGO bricks, building LEGO bricks

Where do LEGO bricks come from? Why, from the LEGO factory, of course. And in a bit of LEGO-ception, here’s a LEGO factory built of LEGO by BrickJonas. This model looks as if it just came off a designer’s drawing table in Billund, complete with a full interior, removable roofs and modularity. I wonder if this factory produces bricks to build a LEGO factory?

Microscale office looks like the perfect place to work

Modern architecture might appear to be the perfect subject for recreating in LEGO. However, many of the angled planes currently in vogue amongst building designers actually make for difficult modelling in bricks. Polar Stein pulls it off in style with this microscale version of an award-winning office complex in New Jersey.

The model is beautifully simple, with excellent lines, much like the building it’s based on. I’m a particular fan of the angled supporting columns at the open corner. Also, at this scale, the use of multiple trans-clear bricks manages to suggest an internal structure. The builder suggests they’re going to have a go at this in minifig-scale. Interesting challenge, and they’ve already set themselves a high bar with this lovely microscale version.

Rosenwald Apartments are impressive and tiny

Microscale is challenging in its own right, despite it’s tiny tiny size. Rocco Buttliere is a master of this impressive scale, and we’ve featured his work before, notably with his Houses of Parliament and 40 Wall Street.

This newest addition to his tiny empire is certainly more understated than what we’ve featured before and no less impressive. The Rosenwald Apartments, named after former president of Sears and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, feature lovely landscaping and the tiniest art deco I’ve ever seen. I particularly love the use of the grill tile, held in place presumably by sheer will, that gives the impression of tiny windows. It’s very effective!