LEGO Skylines

[foxmtbr]

^ Yep! That's when I first discovered my love for architecture, as a little kid, while my brothers built castles and dinosaurs and spaceships with legos, I built cities with skyscrapers.

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by Tanster

woow!! how did you get those type of legos?
i dont think you can buy those type of legos at a local store

All of the Lego bricks used in my buildings can be purchased as part of sets at stores such as Toys R Us that sell Lego. The only problem is that when building a large structure, you may need many of one type of brick. That is where http://www.bricklink.com comes in handy. You can also check eBay (some people are selling specific lots of Lego instead of the more usual "this is my kid's old Lego collection").

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by john_mclark

I feel models give a better look at future building projects.

John (and Kevin):
You should definitely look at the amazing work of a friend of mine. My own buildings are in too big a scale to use for city planning but Spencer Rezkall has been developing many extraordinarily detailed "micro-scale" skyscraper models out of Lego:


Photo montage by Spencer: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2358691
(you can use this link to access additional photos of his models).

His Sears Tower model is about 2 feet high and yet uses over 4000 small Lego parts. The scale is larger than Kevin's Austin skyline, but nevertheless Spencer has talked about trying to do all of southern Manhattan. He gets all his parts from bricklink.com

When building a Lego skyline, I recommend trying to get the color as close as possible to the real structures (the Lego company makes several dozen colors of Lego now compared to about 6 colors in the 1970s).

[john_mclark]

this is like the stuff Buddy the Elf did in Elf

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by john_mclark

this is like the stuff Buddy the Elf did in Elf

That scene in Elf when they fight around the Lego display at the department store gave me nightmares!

[Goody]

man that is awesome I want my own little city to play with

[vid]

SHARE!!

Man if I had money I would so do that.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by DecoJim

2006: The 37 story David Stott Building:

DecoJim, mad props for that David Scott Building model. That is a beauty! Are you ever going to do the Guadian Building? My personal Detroit favorite!

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

DecoJim, mad props for that David Scott Building model. That is a beauty! Are you ever going to do the Guadian Building? My personal Detroit favorite!

Thanks Kevin!

The Guardian Building is a natural for a Lego model if the scale is large enough. The stepped arches and the multitude of miniture setbacks near the top all lend themselves to Lego brick construction. The main obsticles are time and money. The David Stott building model took several months to complete and cost over $1,000. I estimate that a Guardian Building model in the same scale would cost at least four times as much. Another problem would be getting enough of the dark orange brick (I do not paint Lego bricks!). I purchased about 2/3 of all of the then available supply of dark orange bricks from Bricklink.com (the quantities have since recovered). In other words it might take years to get the parts (unless I can appeal directly to the Lego company).

If I do build it, I will let you know!

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, painting Legos is out. I've never done anything like that other than to write on some of the little flags. But nothing beyond that. I have used decals from other models to put on my model cars, but that's about it. This is one more thing I like about modeling skyscrapers using Legos. It's not always an easy thing to do and there's always the chance that a building could be unbuildable. Some buildings that are round are pretty much off limits to being able to be built. I've gotten better with angles and different ways of acchieving setbacks, though.

[john_mclark]

My greatest fear came to life. I finished building my city on a coffee table and my dog, Stogie, walks by and nocks it over with his tail. Talk about a disaster at home.

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by john_mclark

My greatest fear came to life. I finished building my city on a coffee table and my dog, Stogie, walks by and nocks it over with his tail. Talk about a disaster at home.

If I can recover from this:

(my first attempt at the Fisher Building was not strong enough)

...and this:

(after a train show someone used a section of my Fisher Building to break his fall; you can see the hole where his hand went through the roof).

...then you should be able to rebuild!

The trick I use to prevent dogs (I have three) from damaging my Lego buildings is to make the buildings bigger and heavier than the dogs.

[john_mclark]

i would make my buildings bigger and heavier but i have a 110 lb lab and i don't have that many legos.

[Rizzo]

No offense Deco Jim, but those two last photos of the carnage are actually kind of cool. I know you are a master builder, so repairs shouldn't be a big challenge.

I've said this before, but your work is excellent. I look forward to seeing more.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by DecoJim

If I can recover from this:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/De...ercollapse.jpg
(my first attempt at the Fisher Building was not strong enough)

So if that attempt wasn't strong enough, did any bricks suffer any actual physical damage when it all went south?

/proud 4 (or 5, if you count consecutive days) time visitor of Lego-land in Billund.

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by Swede

So if that attempt wasn't strong enough, did any bricks suffer any actual physical damage when it all went south?

I do not think any bricks were damaged. When the building section hit the ground it appears that the kinetic energy was absorbed by the seperation of all the bricks rather than by just the bricks at the point of contact with the floor . In contrast my Lego User Group (MichLUG.org) was working on a project a few years ago for Kellogs Cereal City Museum (now closed) that included a 7 foot high Tony the Tiger made of Lego. The contract specified that it be glued since the statue would be exposed to direct contact with children (one of the most destructive forces known). Anyway, someone dropped a hand that had been glued together and since there was no "give" to it, several bricks were severly damaged and had to be replaced (a lot of work since the glue had already set).

I did learn from my Fisher Building disaster however.
1. I removed from the building all of my old Lego bricks that dated from my childhood (those bricks are older than many SSP forumers) because they were worn and caused weak points in the building.
2. I built stronger the second time with better constructed walls and more internal bracing.
3. No one will punch a hole in the Fisher Building roof again because the entire roof section is now solid Lego!



Surprisingly, I have never been to a Legoland and have only been to one Lego store (Michigan Ave store in Chicago).


Wolverine, I take no offense at all. I simply made a Lego engineering mistake and I learned from it and moved on. It was a classic blessing in disguise because if that collapse had occured while I was setting up for a public exhibit such as at a train show....
Also, thanks for the compliment!


John_mClark, it looks like you need to purchase more Lego!
I have a relatively small house and small yard and a 110 pound would not have sufficent room to roam; therefore my dogs are small and are not a danger to my 230 pound Fisher Building.

[Visiteur]

There are few things out there in LegoLand more amazing than those skyscrapers. Absolutely incredible .

[foxmtbr]

Oh no!! What a tragic collapse! I'm glad to see it didn't throw you off though, and you persisted with rebuilding it. I don't think I could ever have that kind of perseverance.

[KevinFromTexas]

That sucks DecoJim.

I have some Lego skyscrapers which are my own design, nothing major, just tall narrow towers which are built in part with Legos and Duplos. My cat Mittens, who passed away last year, would knock them over a few times. I have them up on a table, "The Lego Table". I'd put them all back together within an hour. They aren't very intricate, atleast nothing like what you have, but a few are tall, the tallest being 53 inches. Now days with my new cat Jules, and my dog Sophie, they still run around on the Lego table but don't really knock anything over and the table and buildings are sturdy enough that they don't fall from them running on the table. My cat weighs 15 pounds, and my dog Sophie is an 11 pound Miniature Poodle. My "skyline" of my own towers weigh about as much my cat and dog combined, so even with both of them on the table, they're fine. My cat sleeps on the table and they both eat there also. My Lego table sort of doubles as a desk in my room.

[DecoJim]

Originally Posted by foxmtbr

Oh no!! What a tragic collapse! I'm glad to see it didn't throw you off though, and you persisted with rebuilding it. I don't think I could ever have that kind of perseverance.

The two accidents I had with the Fisher Building only comprised about 20% of the entire structure each time. My choice was of either rebuilding 20% or tearing down 80%. I do not give up after one little reverse! Like I said previously, it actually helped because I rebuilt it stronger which reduced a likelyhood of a repeat.

I have recently completed a sixth building for my Lego Detroit - a early 20th century factory building:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/decojim/439203281/

At the rate I am going, it will take only about 100 years to get a decent downtown built.