LEGO designer tips: how to build street-lamps

LEGO Creator designer Jamie Berard regularly shares building tips on how to improve your building skills by using more advanced techniques and create some impressive masterpieces. Today we will look at how to build LEGO street-light using a few basic parts and some clever techniques. 🙂

You will notice that many of the LEGO Creator and LEGO City sets include street-lights of various designs. Of course there is the standard LEGO street-light with a lamp-pole that is all one piece. Here all you have to do is ad a light on top, and maybe a bit of decorative finish. Even this light-pole actually has two versions. Although they are quite similar at first look, the decoration at their base is different; the older version has six grooves, whereas the newer one has four grooves. Also, while the newer version only comes in black and white, the older version came in black, white, light-gray, dark-gray, and some fun colors like red, turquoise, violet and pink. Then there is the really old, but very nice looking LEGO Fabuland lamp-post, that you can also see in the video below as Jamie refers to it.

The regular LEGO street-light is included in all of the LEGO Modular Buildings and LEGO Winter Village sets (you can find the old version with six grooves in the older sets, and the new version with four grooves in the newer sets), as well as in several LEGO City and other sets. And while you can certainly top them off with different lights, it is also sometimes fun – and a good challenge – to build your own LEGO light-poles from scratch.

In the video below Jamie shows you six LEGO street-light examples. It is interesting that he mentions that when LEGO designers work on a new set they often include several versions of the street-light, just to see which one would work the best. And while Jamie only shows you step-by-step instructions on how to build one of the LEGO street-lights, you can easily build the other ones if you have the right pieces, or use the examples given here as inspirations to come up with your own designs.

Many people also add real working lights to their LEGO City layouts. You can make these on your own by using thin wires and LED lights, or just buy a light-kit from one of the LEGO customizers. In fact, LEGO customizer BrickForge used to make a lamp-post that was hollow all the way through and you could split it open to easily include a wire (I’m not sure if they still make them – I couldn’t find it in their store at the time of writing this article). Also, LEGO customizer LiteUpBlocks makes an already wired version of the standard LEGO lamp-post that works with either batteries or with a USB plug. Below is a picture of all the LEGO lamp-posts I have for comparison (from left to right): LEGO Fabuland, LEGO old style with six grooves, LEGO new style with four grooves, BrickForge, LightUpBlocks with USB cable, LigthUpBlocks with battery-box.

The bottom line is that LEGO street-lights – whether they light up or not – are a fun addition to any LEGO city and can really make your creation stand out. You can make them simple, or complex, modern or old-fashioned, and there are plenty of small LEGO elements you can use to build them. Hope the examples shown here give you some inspiration to make your own!

So what do you think? Have you ever built your own street light, or you normally just use the standard one. Did you ever modify a LEGO lamp-post to add real light to it? Are there any other street-light designs you really like? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the Building Techniques section for more tips and tricks to enhance your LEGO building skills, or select from some of these related posts:

• LEGO Designer Tips: How to Build Columns
• LASER PEGS – Construction Toys with Lights
• Custom LEGO Street Lights & More!
• Custom LEGO Light Bricks Now in Color!
• LEGO Light Bricks – More Options!
• LEGO Light Bricks – 12 x 12 Light-Up Base
• Let There Be Light! Light Up Your LEGO World!
• Light Up Your Halloween LEGO Haunted House!
• Bring Your LEGO Creations to Life with ATOMS!