Tag Archives: Modular Buildings

LEGO Gift with Purchase 40532 Vintage Taxi – Let our friendly driver take you for a ride! [Review]

LEGO recently celebrated 15 years of their City Modular Building Collection with the stunning 10297 Boutique Hotel. Now they’ve unveiled a new set that seems to slot right into that downtown area. LEGO 40532 Vintage Taxi will be available as a Gift With Purchase from LEGO Shop Online. While LEGO has yet to officially confirm the promotion details, it’s rumored to be available starting January 28th with qualifying purchases of US $200 | CAN $200 | UK £200. This 163-piece set comes with a driver, taxi stand, and a very sweet-looking ride. But is it worth the price of admission? Come along and see for yourself!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early, non-embargoed copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

From Hogwarts to the University of Cambricks, an alternate build for 71043 Hogwarts Castle

Alternate builds for LEGO sets have long been part of the fun. When I was a kid, I remember loving to see the variants featured on the back of the box. As a young fan of LEGO, it inspired me to look at that box of bricks in a different light — to try my hand at my own alternates. Twenty years later, I can count myself amongst a crowd of LEGO fans devoted to alternate builds. Though you can find all sizes of re-imagined sets, few are as ambitions as builder Lucas Bolt and his Modular variant of the microscale 71043 Hogwarts Castle. Inspired by the magic school aspect, Lucas created the University of Cambricks to fit perfectly on the corner of a LEGO Modular city street.

Continue reading →

The Temple of Technology demands your time

This kinetic LEGO structure by Sheo has presented a rare instance in which I’d rather not flap my piehole about it and allow the creation to speak for itself. It’s called the Temple of Technology and is part of a series of modular buildings Sheo has constructed.

I can assure you the magic of this creation is best seen in motion so be sure to watch the video. That use of the clock hands is just brilliant!

Taking modular buildings to the next level.

LEGO’s line of modular buildings have been captivating fans of larger, more advanced sets since 2007. Naturally, the line has inspired plenty of fans to create their own buildings to stand alongside LEGO’s offerings. Builder Sheo has taken custom modulars up a notch by producing a modern building with a working glass elevator.

Have a look at the video below to get a peek inside and watch the elevator in action.

The houses of blues

This is a street that makes me feel the opposite of the blues! Kristel Whitaker built a collection of identical townhouses inspired by the colours of the world’s oceans – and also LEGO’s many blue colours. Titled “Ocean Drive”, this build is not only the modular houses but an immersive scene of its residents. The children – currently on summer holiday – are playing outside with the cats while their grandma sits on the front steps. The others come and go, both for work and leisure, and the resident flamingo watches the neighbourhood amongst the flowers. Life is good in the big city.

I love how this is reminiscent of London’s famous Portobello Road, which features similar Victorian-terrace houses. Each of LEGO’s common blue colour looks good – especially teal! This scene radiates a certain warmth, both because of the inclusion of light aqua and medium azure, and also the flowers in each garden. I also like the architectural detail of white flowers in the crest that separates the first and second floors. It’s definitely a street that I would love to live in!

Check out more of Kristel’s lovely builds here!

2 modular buildings are always better than 1

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.

Category is Facade Eleganza Extravaganza

Maxim Baybakov is a master when it comes to building modular houses. His latest creation is no exception to this. The grey building appears to have a lot of detail. The joint profile pops more in the eye thanks to the use of headlight brick in combination with various tiles. The tan building seems quite simple. However, if you zoom in on the picture, a lot of details in the brickwork appear. The construction of this building is actually quite complex. Luckily Maxim is kind enough to offer us an insight into the construction of both buildings. In his photostream, you can view a break down of the window techniques.

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!

LEGO Modular Buildings Collection 10278 Police Station [Review]

With last year’s 10270 Bookshop, LEGO returned to a more traditional style of architecture than the 1950’s style of the previous couple of years. With this year’s 10278 Police Station, LEGO continues a classic look that would not feel out of place on the streets of New York or London. The new Modular set includes 2,923 pieces with five minifigures, and will be available starting January 1st, 2021 ($199.99 US | $269.99 CAD | UK pricing TBD).

The theme of the set is not without controversy and some strong reactions from within the LEGO fan community. We’ll address this later in the review, but ask our readers up front to be respectful of differing opinions in the comments.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Read our hands on review of 10278 Police Station

LEGO reveals 10278 Police Station as next in the Modular Buildings Collection [News]

LEGO has announced its 16th Modular building in the highly popular lineup first introduced in 2007. The upcoming set will be a Police Station with an intricate architectural flair, sandwiched between a donut shop and a newsstand. The box art transitions to the new adult-themed dark background shades with an 18+ age guidance indicator, also a bump up from the 16+ age recommendation since the inception of the series, along with new Modular Buildings Collection branding.

The set comes with 2,923 pieces and 5 minifigures and will retail for $199.99 US | $269.99 CAD | €199 EU | $299.99 AU and will be available on January 1, 2021. This makes it the second-largest Modular building, following the special 10th-anniversary Assembly Square with 4,002 pieces.

Click to see the full details of the Police Station modular

Say Ciao to this charming Italian villa

Koala Yummies is no stranger to The Brothers Brick and their latest creation definitely deserves a mention. If this were a modular I’d buy it in a heartbeat. There are quite a few features that set this creation apart so let’s dive into it!

The roof design on both of the buildings is amazing. For the taller building, 1×1 round bricks are used to represent roof shingles while on the shorter building curved double slopes were used. The window treatments are different but equally stunning with the white building utilizing boomerangs to adorn the windows and on the tan buildings we have arches combined with curved wedges. Tying it all together, both buildings use the ingot bar and masonry brick have been used to add texture to the walls. There are also a lot of half circle and quarter round tiles used to represent broken pavement. Last but not least, I love a building with plants trailing the facade, in real life and in LEGO life. And this one looks lush with all those plant parts added to it.

A morning in Paris

Start off the day by taking a stroll through the colonnade, grab a croissant and magazine from the newspaper stand, then head down to the underground metro. Now I could spend an endless amount of time imagining that I’m walking around in this LEGO modular row by Jean Macou. This delightful set of buildings is like Parisian Restaurant meets Assembly Square, but with an unlimited budget. Each building is more decked out than the next. Some of my favorite details include the gold and nougat color palette on the pub and small restaurant at the front. I’ve also been eyeing that sand green masonry brick building to the right and its gorgeous white trim and tan ground floor.

Remove the floors to peek into the detailed interiors of the build. Here’s an inside look of the pub– its layout and color scheme achieve a next-level realism for architectural builds.