Maybe we need a carpark for all those Empire State Building workers?
Buoyed by the fun we had making the Empire State Building we'll turn our attentions to the next building. Perhaps with all the 'workers' in the State building we need a carpark?
We have a memory of seeing a fabulous 1960s Lego display on a blog somewhere - it looked to be a museum display of sorts. We re-hunted around and found it on questforbricks.com. Turns out the display is located in the Lego Museum in Denmark:
The Lego Idea House display window from the Lego museum in Billund, Denmark. (Image courtesy www.questforbriocks.com)
In the rear of the picture are some really lovely larger scale lego buildings. Perhaps these could form the basis for the design of the additional three or four larger buildings.
On a seperate research string we came across the Orica Building in Melbourne. Originally named "ICI House" it was built in 1955 and was Australia's first skyscraper. It is seen as the first example of a "modern" building, throwing off the shackles of Victorian conservative design just in time for the 1956 Olympic games. We feel this design could translate well in Lego.
Merging the inspiration from the Orica building and the red building from the Lego museum image we'll get underway, as usual we'll design a prototype and then complete the final build once we're sure it can meet our specifications:
it must have structural integrity to stand securely upright (even on slightly uneven display tables),
it needs to survive transport (usually in a bumpy trailer),
it needs to be configured and reconfigured easily and quickly in the bump in and bump out of events.
The carpark prototype - front view - the four layers with partial roof (48 wide x 26 deep)
We figure the building will work well if we have four layers (red, red with white feature, another red and a transparent layer). These four layers will be repeated until we got to the requisite height. We plan to get to a height of around 60cm. We need to be careful it doesn't dominate the Chrysler Building which needs to be the tallest, most significant building in the display.
We have to be careful to make sure the structure will hold up as there will be no internal support structures. Only time will tell!
The side view of the prototype. (26 deep)
The underside of the roof layer - comprised of 2 x 10s and 2 x 8s.
The final brick tally for the build:
White bricks 1 x 8 = 96
White bricks 1 x 6 = 48
White bricks 1 x 4 = 48
White bricks1 x 2 = 192
Total pieces: 1,268
Red bricks 1 x 8 = 120
Red bricks 2 x 8 = 456
Red bricks 2 x 10 = 48
Trans bricks 1 x 4 = 240
White plates 2 x 8 = 20
The build underway - front view - 36 layers and counting (eight plus the roof layer to go)
The build underway - side view
And the completed building, 44 layers tall including the roof layer:
Completed - front view
Completed - side view
Completed - rear view
Completed - top view
Completed - detail
Completed - front view with minifigure for scale
Much to our surprise, once the roof layer was added, the structure seemed to be quite sturdy, despite it lacking a solid base or internal support structures.
Our list of buildings so far:
The White and Trans Apartments
The Hotel
The Tiny House
The Tiny House with the curved roof
The Cafe
The Kiosk
The Church (#309)
The Small Store (#210-2)
The ESSO Filling Station (#310)
The Fire Station (#308)
The VW Dealer (#307)
The VW Garage (#306)
The Garage (#236)
The Red and White Apartments
The Police Station
The Blue Apartments
The Sanitarium Factory
The Hospital
The Empire State Building
The Car Park
??
??
??
Two large MOCs done. What next? Perhaps a large apartment block...
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