Every city has a dirty side, where all the warehouses and factories and such live. Since I’ve already built a fair amount of residential and commercial buildings, it’s time to turn my attention toward industrial zones. I’ll get things started with a wrecking yard. Continue reading Industrial Micropolis (part 1)
To finish out my rather incomplete survey of commercial buildings, let’s build a grocery store. Since last week’s eatery was a bit fattening, this will be a smaller organic store, the kind of business that might be equally welcome in the central city or the suburbs. Continue reading Commercial Micropolis (part 4)
It is fun to build office towers and such, but much of modern cities is much more suburban in its architecture. So many boxy single-story buildings surrounded by parking lots. How about we build something a mundane, a doughnut shop. Continue reading Commercial Micropolis (Part 3)
Most big cities are defined by the cluster of office towers at their core. These manifestations of ego create iconic skylines. So far I’ve only focused on fairly modest buildings, now it is time to build something a little taller and flashier. Continue reading Commercial Micropolis (part 2)
I’ve been lax in my blogging lately, but here I am back again with another installment of my Micropolis posts. This time I’ll be switching gears to talk about commercial buildings. This building was inspired by a pile of elements that I received in a draft and a vision of a tiny brick-built taco. So I decided that I needed to add a taqueria to my city. Continue reading Commercial Micropolis (part 1)
Over the past couple of posts we’ve built single family dwellings. Since Micropolis builders tend to focus on urban cores rather than the suburban sprawl, I’d be remiss not to explore apartment buildings and their ilk. This week I’ll build a four-story walk-up. Continue reading Residential Micropolis (part 3)
Last week I built three very different houses in the Micropolis scale. This week I’ll add each house to a lot and give it appropriate landscaping. I’ve tried to make sure to place the houses in a landscape that fits their character. Continue reading Residential Micropolis (part 2)
Last time, we talked about scale. Now, I would like to start to apply what I have been talking about to some actual models. I’ll start small, building single family dwellings in a trio of styles. Continue reading Residential Micropolis (part 1)
Building at small scales can be tricky. LEGO is a versatile building system, but elements can only get so small before they are too small to handle and interconnect. The smallest common element is a 1×1 plate which would be 7.5 feet across and 3 feet high in Micropolis (making it about 1:285). That is a grainy pixel!
Hopefully, I’ve wetted your appetite for designing little buildings. Before we begin, we have to talk about the rules. As AFOLs, we tend to sideline the instructions. If we build to them, it is often just to plunder them for techniques. Since the heart of Micropolis is the standard, there are rules that we have to follow in order to play well with other builders.