Building LEGO models of architecture by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
posts about more than one builder/Building.
These photos of the final MTN model were taken in a professional studio.
The model looks like two different buildings when viewed from opposite angles: The hanging terraces on the front and the Mount Everest on the back.
A close-up of the structure and symmetry of the apartments and gardens
A helicopter view
From this angle, it is possible to see the tilted elevator connecting all the apartment levels from below.
Sunset over The Mountain
All pictures in high resolution can be found on Flickr
The micro panda house is built with 540 lego bricks. I started with the round enclosure, to have an idea of the global scale of the model. When starting a new model, I always define the scale while building it, depensding on the dimension of the bricks I use; that’s why each model has its own scale. The challenging part here was to combine the circular shape with the rectangular base.
I did two versions of the Mountain: the first one turned out too big, so I decided to start again with a smaller apartment module even if the final one is a bit less accurate, but I think pretty succesful in that scale.
The 8 tallet was very challenging as well, as it’s really hard to get various angles using only lego bricks, but also due to the complexity of the existing build. Using the wall corner 1x1x1 lego element for the balconies is quite successful in this model.
From February 13 to 16, a large number of the models in the Big Builders project are on display in the LEGO Architecture zone at LEGO World in Bella Center, Copenhagen.
The micro models presented in this post are on display for the first time.
Inspired by the lego FORMGIVING exhibition at DAC and since I work as a Design Assistant at BIG Copenhagen I got the idea of recreating some BIG builds in microscale. Being a big fan of micro lego builds this was a real pleasure to build them. So let me show you my first three lego recreations.
This model has been created in a total of two days. I mostly work on Lego Digital Designer to design my models. This helps me to create fast lego models, whitout having any constraints. For the building technique I got inspired by the lego build of Helgi Toftegaard for the Danish Pavilion (Expo 2010), using the the 1×2 Liftarm lego element connected together.
This model was really challenging due to it’s complex shapes, difficult to reproduce with lego bricks. After different tests, I choose to split the surface into 9 slices which allows me to get an accurate shape while keeping the build small.
This is probably one of my favorite build so far. The challenging part on this wasdue to its small size and the level of detail on the surface.
– here seen at Danish Architecture Center for the FORMGIVING exhibition:
I accepted the challenge of building the real world LEGO model based on a LEGO Digital Designer file from Shenghui Jiang. It required some small changes compared to the digital model, but mainly the model is as intended by Shenghui.
René Askham
FORMGIVING – A giant exhibition in the Danish Architecture Center, with 71 BIG projects as glimpses of and gifts to our future. In the “Golden Gallery” 25 BIG-designed buildings are recreated in LEGO bricks by LEGO master builders from all over the world. The LEGO-show is on view until October 20, 2019.
My second build for FORMGIVING is the Grove at Grand Bay. Two winding 20-story towers with luxury condos, cleverly twisting as they rise to provide both towers with great views of the harbour. The towers are surrounded by a lush green landscape providing the residents with comfort and shade.
There were three main challenges with recreating this exciting piece of architecture in LEGO form.
Before I write more about these challenges, let me show you the (almost) completed model. It was definitely tricky to photograph such a large build at home, so please excuse the somewhat cheesy gradient background that was put in to hide some of shortcomings in my photo setup.
The construction of the floors are very simple with no exciting techniques. Notice the hole in the floor which is for the cabling for the lights.
To simplify setup and get the angles correct, each floor has a small angled contraption in it’s center which allows me to stack the floors like pancakes. Two 2×4 bricks on the underside of each floor slots into the contraption to keep it in place.
The lights were custom made by my friend Sigurd Refvik, and consist of:
No small task indeed, with 40 LED’s to solder in addition to all the USB plugs, so huge thanks to Sigurd for his efforts! Each tower has one of the USB connector cables stretching through the floors, with a light cable attached every 4th floor.
To create the landscape around the towers, I used mostly a combination of curved bricks and the relatively new curved tiles, and a lot of bamboo leaves for the greenery. The layout is not 100% accurate, but I tried to keep as many as the key elements as possible.
One thing you may have noticed about the lights are the yellowish lights that bleeds through into the areas that don’t have LEDs. This is is due to the white plates being somewhat translucent, and giving the white light a yellowish hue. After taking the photos I have tried to alleviate this problem somewhat by adding an extra layer of plates to the affected areas, so hopefully the model will look a bit better on display at the exhibition.
That’s all for now, thank you for reading (if you got this far) and hope you enjoyed it!
When I was invited to build something for the FORMGIVING exhibition, one of the buildings that fascinated me was the new Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway. Serving as both infrastructure, architecture and a sculpture, this new museum will truly transform the way guests experience their visit. I recommend checking out the BIG homepage for to get the full story and idea behind KIS: https://big.dk/#projects-kis
When trying to recreate this building as a LEGO model, the biggest challenge is as you may have guessed the twist. I also wanted to avoid adding any support pillars to the bridge which I felt would ruin the look.
The image above shows what I ended up with. Basically the twist consists of a series of 2 studs wide elements connected with Technic pins. The rotation of each element is kept in place with some bricks (not shown) limiting how far it can rotate. The only way to make sure the construction was strong enough was to actually build it, and then let it sit on my shelf to see if it would keep in place or start to sag. After a test period of 4-5 months with no problems I gave it the green light.
Here is the finished model, with interior LED lights. The lights are custom made by my friend Sigurd Refvik who also did the lighting for my second build for FORMGIVNING – namely COCO – Grove at Grand Bay. I will write a bit more detailed about the lights in an upcoming blog post about COCO.
Hope you enjoyed reading, and if you are in Copenhagen be sure to check out the exhibition! https://dac.dk/udstillinger/formgiving-big/
I have built Mount Everest in LEGO! Well, just a mosaic but still…
I am quite satisfied with the result. Compared to the instructions from the mosaic maker program, I have substituted about half of the very light grey 1×1 plates with transparent 1×1 plates. This was done partly because of limited supply, partly to reflect the partial transparency of the real-life wall due to the raster effect described in the previous blog post. Also, the dark bluish grey plates representing the sky have been replaced by dark transparent plates and tiles since this part is in fact the area with the highest level of transparency.
As with all mosaics, the result looks better from a distance as seen on the picture below.
During the construction, I followed the instructions meticulously using a ruler, a pencil and temporary tiles to indicate each 10 studs. Where possible, I used larger plates and bricks to keep the wall together. It is not sturdy, but not too fragile either.
I have now moved on to the final touches including the surrounding street and canal environments.
How is a building instruction made?
The process of creating a building instruction is done in several steps and contains some different challanges.
I often get a quick respond that that has to be easy for a software to make automaticly – but when you look at the details it is not that easy.
Using the LDD in expert mode makes it easy to locate most of the buidling bricks, but if the model is to be built in real life, the bricks must also be availabe in the color you need – that is not allways obvious.
Some of the steps – screendumps from LDD that is later used in photoshop
Using Adobe Photoshop Elements and working in layers, the pages are built up step by step and page by page.
As pages are created in Photoshop the disc is filled with individual pages that need to be merged into a document. This is done using Adobe Acrobat.
The above work and blog article is made by me, Anders Horvath. A LEGO fan since birth and an active Swebrick AFOL since 2012. Back in 1987 after engineering collegue I started at a company working as a technical illustrator making spare parts lists/3D illustrations (in 1987 3D illustrations was made by hand, not computers).
Today I am a marketing communication manager for a big corporation so the LDD and 3D modelleling is a fun work on the side in combination with the LEGO building hobby, bringing some “good old days” back into my life.