Building a City with limited space

[TheLunabrick]

So I want to start on a City, but I have very limited space to do so, I was thinking of mostly doing a lot of small buildings (kinda like the building included with the Catcycle set from the LBM line) and having a few creator buildings here and there. I dont really have a lot of space to work with however so I was wondering what you guys thought would be good for making a city in a small space.

[ColletArrow]

Firstly, how small? My 'city' is more a street scene, at 3 by 2.5 baseplates!
The size is also partially dictated by how much road space you want to have available; do you go for a whole street of standard road plates, or make your own, narrower road system? Perhaps you could model the older part of a city, spaces tend to be more cramped there.
If all of your buildings are the smaller creator buildings you mentioned, the city should remain 'in scale' with itself and hence feel cohesive.

[Littleworlds]

I would consider putting the buildings side-by-side on a shelf, so you get a nice urban-street facade, which does take away very little floor space. This variant is of course limited, depending what you want to do with it and not really a "proper" city layout, but has the smallest footprint I can think of.

[letsgorangers]

SAME!

I have a small table that can barely accommodate 8 32x32 baseplates, 4 on each side.

What I do is I have pretty small buildings, my "best" (a small toys R us moc) being a modest 6x14. This way, I can fit buildings on the sides of street baseplates.

Smaller cities can actually be quite nice, It all depends on the builder, having the skill and OF COURSE HAVING THE PARTS  (Which I, sadly, do not )

Some tips

• Add in the little things (fire hydrants, traffic lights, sidewalks,ect...)
• Add in some smaller scenes, such as a street performer from the collectible minifigs/create your own!
• Keep it in perspective. Don't have a full on fire station taking up two entire baseplates and then a 6x6 house right across the street
• Make it your own!

 

 

 

 

[LAKAbricks]

I am in the same boat here. My plans are bigger than my table. It actually keeps me from start building a layout, as I want more than I have space for. 

I am therefore thinking about doing it a bit differently, namely building temporary layouts (maybe on the dining table, wife says ok! ). To get some variety, I plan to make different layouts every time. For example building chronologically: How would a layout in 1984 look? The update it to 1986, 1988, etc. The it could be a small town layout with smaller houses and shops and a bus stop. Then a big city layout with big buildings, tramways and busy streets. Then maybe an airport layout, castle or pirate. - This way it is still possible to pursue one's ideas without needing a gigantic layout.

If you have got some shelfes for displaying, you can also make small dioramas there.

If you need some inspiration for layouts, I will recommend you to take a look at the two layout indices. Here you can find both big and small layouts:

* The old, rather comprehensive Town Layout Index, which is not updated anymore.

* The newer, but seldomly used Index: Town Layouts.

[Vindicare]

On 4/10/2017 at 10:59 PM, TheLunabrick said:

So I want to start on a City, but I have very limited space to do so, I was thinking of mostly doing a lot of small buildings (kinda like the building included with the Catcycle set from the LBM line) and having a few creator buildings here and there. I dont really have a lot of space to work with however so I was wondering what you guys thought would be good for making a city in a small space.

I say, just start. Get some sets built and placed in whatever area you're planning to use for the town. Then just add to it as you go along. I like to look at YouTube a lot. Search "Lego town layouts", you'll get plenty of ideas & inspiration.