Curves are difficult to capture in LEGO. The more complicated the surface, the more parts intensive and technical the solution. So of course I decided to play about with conical shapes for my latest building.

I keep coming back to low rise urban buildings. I love feel of densely-packed, smallish, brick buildings. They offer so much character and such an easily imagined history.

Sometimes a building is about just one detail. Sometimes they sing with just one note.

I’ve been getting inspired by industrial architecture from science fiction concept art. My city has been lacking in industrial buildings, yet I don’t want to build sprawling manufacturing complexes either. This fictional futurism lets me have small buildings with implied purpose and complex details.

Though I’m not a big beer drinker, I have fond memories of the breweries of Portland. During the fourteen years that I lived there, I found myself passing one brewery or another just about every day. It seems an oversight that it has taken so long to add one to my city.

I’ve been in a LEGO funk for ages. Life has been turbulent and the enduring pandemic has kept me bottled up. Recently though, I’ve realized that I want to design more futuristic buildings. I want to create a future worth living in.

This building is inspired by some pictures I saw of a local building, the Rainier Square Tower. I was immediately taken by the gentle curving taper. Of course, I mis-remembered some of the details and went in a different direction with my building.

Inspiration has been coming inconsistently of late. This one came to me as the illustration of a spaceship, which imagining industrial buildings with a sci-fi flair. So I tucked into designing a futuristic factory.

The last few weeks I’ve been a bit off, a mix of burnout and complete lack of inspiration. It was a pleasant surprise last week when I finally saw a building that sparked my fancy. It was refreshing to fire up my stream and enjoy the process again!

I don’t usually design my Micropolis modules to complement each other, but the last few have been quarters of a cohesive block of mostly old-school masonry. This final module is another trio of various brick buildings, each with their own character.