Most LEGO fans display the LEGO Modular Buildings as they are. They may connect the buildings in a different order to create a slightly varying layout, but other than that LEGO Modular Building streets tend to look the same. However LEGO Modular Buildings actually lend themselves for expansion both upwards and sideways, and by this offering a lot more possibilities and variations. And to achieve this is not that hard. 🙂
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS UPWARDS EXPANSION: Most LEGO Modular Buildings are about a foot (12 inches) tall. The highest buildings is the #10224 LEGO Creator Town Hall at 20 inches. This is a suitable height range for most people who display the LEGO Modular Buildings a shelving system or table at home. The buildings are large enough to be impressive, but not too large to take up too much space.
However for public displays, or for large LEGO rooms, the bigger the better. The easiest way to make your LEGO Modular Building display more impressive is to simply increase the number of floors. All you have to do is buy multiple copies of each LEGO Modular Building and add in one, two, or more additional floors in between the first floor and the roof section. All LEGO Modular Buildings can be expanded this way because by design they have stacked floors. You can even create some very impressive high-rise buildings this way with very little additional work. See various expanded versions of the #10251 LEGO Creator Brick Bank, created by LegoSjaak. The original set is the smallest building in the first row.
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS SIDEWAYS EXPANSION: You can also make the LEGO Modular Buildings larger by expanding them sideways. This takes more designing and planning as the LEGO Modular Buildings don’t naturally extend sideways, but it is still fairly easy to do. Again, your first step would be to buy an extra copy of the set (or more -depending on how much you want to expand it), then start building. You can simply repeat the original design of the set and duplicate each section. So for example where the original building has two windows next to each other, you can expand that to four. All of the LEGO Modular Buildings can be expanded this way, and they look exceptionally good.
The #10218 LEGO Creator Pet Shop particularly lends itself to this type of expansion because it is made up two buildings split in the middle. You can buy 2-3 extras of this set to create a row of residential buildings and small shops. You can even change to colors to add variety. For example the sand-blue Pet Shop section of the set looks excellent in sand-green and sand-red.
Other LEGO Modular Buildings that look particularly good with a sideways expansion are the corner buildings. This includes the #10182 LEGO Creator Café Corner, the #10211 LEGO Creator Grand Emporium and the #10232 LEGO Creator Palace Cinema.
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS UPWARDS & SIDEWAYS: For truly large and impressive buildings you can combine the two methods mentioned above, and expand the original sets both upwards and sideways. There is really no limit on how tall and how wide you can make them.
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS MIRROR BUILDING: Another way you can add variety to your LEGO Modular layout is to create a mirror image of the original set. The corner buildings are particularly good for this and you can create an entire block using this technique. The apartment side of the #10218 LEGO Creator Pet Shop can also be mirrored by placing the door on the right and the bay window units on the left. It creates an interesting variety when you use several copies of the set.
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS OTHER EXPANSIONS: Lately LEGO designers have been making the LEGO Modular Buildings more interesting. This is particularly true for the #10246 LEGO Creator Detective’s Office and the #10251 LEGO Creator Brick Bank. Both have smaller buildings fused together, which means they can be creatively expanded on their own, and thus making varied widths and roof lines.
➡ LEGO MODULAR BUILDINGS INSIDE EXPANSIONS: Of course expanding the buildings on the outside means that you will have expanded space on the inside as well. You can simply make larger versions of the rooms of the original set (the easiest option), or you could divide up the inside space in your own way and add additional areas.
As you can see, there are lots of ways to make your LEGO Modular layout unique, and it doesn’t even take that much work or design skill. If you want, you can spend the time on more complex variations, but if you would like to keep it simple, you can just duplicate or slightly vary what the original sets provide. This is also an excellent way to hone your building skills, and increase the enjoyment you get from each set.
If you would like to get more inspiration on expanding your LEGO Modular Buildings, you can find many examples on the various LEGO forums and picture sharing sites. I also highly recommend the flickr album of LegoSjaak, who specializes in expanding the LEGO Modular Buildings and built a whole city square with them. All pictures in this article are from his album. And you can also check out the currently available LEGO Modular Buildings at the Online LEGO Shop.
So what do you think? Do you collect the LEGO Modular Buildings series? Have you considered making them larger by adding extra floors or making the buildings wider? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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