The LEGO Modular Buildings series is one of the most popular collections with adult LEGO fans. They are substantial, look good on display, and provide a satisfying building experience with lots of little details and interesting building techniques. While many LEGO fans are happy to display the sets as they are, others like to modify them slightly – or even substantially – to create a unique layout. This may include making the official sets wider or taller, changing the colors, or upgrading the interior. We have discussed a number of techniques in this regards, and I have included some links for you at the end of this post. 🙂
However if you want to be even more adventurous, you can also build completely unique structures that still fit the style of the official LEGO Modular Buildings. By following the basic layout, style and connection points of the LEGO Modular Buildings, you can add pretty much any other structure; office buildings, restaurants, shops, residential buildings, and more. Using examples from other LEGO fans, and taking advantage of LEGO Digital Designer, you can work out the details even before buying a single brick. Once you are done, you can order the LEGO pieces you need directly from LEGO, or from BrickLink sellers.
If you are not completely ready to build your own buildings from scratch, but would still like to add something unique to your layout, there are a couple of resources for custom LEGO Modular Buildings that you might want to take advantage of. Some time back I told you about a book that is an excellent source for LEGO Modular Buildings style structures, called The LEGO Neighborhood Book by Brian and Jason Lyles. The book covers everything from the specific standards of the LEGO Modular Buildings, to choosing colors, building techniques for detailing, interior and exterior decorations and furnishing, and even designing commercial buildings. You can read my detailed review of the book here: The LEGO Neighborhood Book – Review, and buy the book on Amazon at the following link: The LEGO Neighborhood Book on Amazon
The authors of The LEGO Neighborhood Book also run a website called BrickCityDepot.com. Here you can purchase additional instructions for custom LEGO buildings that fit the LEGO Modular Buildings style. They only cost a few dollars, and you will get a full inventory of the parts needed, as well as step-by-step building instructions. A particularly useful section of the website lists alternate instructions for official LEGO sets, which means that if you already have the original set, you won’t have to buy the parts. For example, the #10224 LEGO Creator Town Hall is rebuilt into a consulate, the #10228 LEGO Monster Fighters Haunted House is turned into a row house, and the #10197 LEGO Creator Fire Brigade becomes a townhouse. These instructions also only cost a few dollars, and could make your city quite unique and interesting.
A similar website is called BrickBuildersPro.com. They also provide a wide variety of instructions for LEGO Modular Buildings style structures, and also structures that may not attach directly to the LEGO Modular Buildings, but would fit into a larger LEGO city layout. Some examples are a large international airport, train-station, church, warehouse, barn, diner, fishing dock, and more. Prices for the downloadable instructions are about the same as with the previous website, and they also have some free instructions for smaller builds, like a bus-station, shopping cart, soda fountain, vending machine, and popcorn cart.
Once you build a few official LEGO Modular Buildings, and a few custom buildings by others, you are well on your way to designing and build your own structures. You may even want to recreate a street from your town! So I hope you find these resources helpful. What do you think? Have you considered building your own custom LEGO Modular Buildings? What would you like to add to your layout? Did you try any of the resources I mentioned above? How did you like them? Feel free to share your thoughts and own review in the comment section below! And you can also check out the currently available LEGO Modular Buildings at the Online LEGO Shop.
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