[MOC] BRICKS & BLOOMS - Modular Garden Centre

[Bricked1980]

Hi everyone

I'd like to present my latest MOC, a new modular building called Bricks & Blooms. I hope you like it.

 

Bricks & Blooms is a modular Garden Centre built over 3 levels on a 32 x 32 base plate. in total it uses 2587 bricks. The facade is supposed to give the impression of being 2 buildings side by side but it is of course just one single building. The front to back measurement of the building is quite narrow, similar to Parisian restaurant. This is because I wanted to maintain plenty of space at the rear of the building for the main outside garden centre / plant sale area.

 

THE MINIFIGURES

I've included 6 mini figs and a cat with this MOC.  Left to right they are: 2 customers (a father and his daughter), The garden centre shop keeper and gardener, the chef and the Aquatics shop assistant.

 

THE GARDEN CENTRE AND GROUND LEVEL DETAILS

The main garden centre area of the store is situated on the ground level. Outside on the street, I've included a tree, bench and lots of plants and flowers for sale.

The garden centre also has a fruit and veg stall that sells it's produce directly to passers by on the street.

Inside the shop I've included the cashier desk and more plants and gardening tools for sale including a little lawn mower side-build.

Here is the interior of the fruit and veg stall that is accessed through a door at the back of the cashier desk.

A door at the back of the shop leads out in to the main outdoor gardening area. Here I've included a large glass canopy covering rows of tables holding bedding plants. There are also more flowers, pots and other gardening products including a water feature.

The stairs at the back of the building lead up to level 2.

 

LEVEL 2 - CAFE/RESTAURANT

No garden centre would be complete without its own cafe/restaurant. The cafe on level 2 has a fully equipped kitchen with serving desk and tables and chairs for the minifigs.

There is also a small balcony in the cafe that looks out on to the street below.

 

LEVEL 3 - AQUATICS

Many garden centres here in the UK also have departments that specialise in pet fish and Aquatics. Bricks & Blooms is no exception and has it's own dedicated Aquatics section on level 3.

The Cat below seems to have its eye on the goldfish. 

The door behind the desk leads out on to a small roof terrace area.

 

FLOWER CART

The model also includes a flower cart.

THE FINISHED MODEL

 

The picture below shows Bricks & Blooms combined with my other modulars and vehicle MOC's. Left to right they are.

The Queen Bricktoria       Convenience Store        Brick Square Post Office        Bricks & Blooms        The Old Workhorse - Traction Engine

 

LEGO IDEAS

I have submitted Bricks & Blooms as a LEGO Ideas project. If you like the model I'd be really grateful if you'd be kind enough to head over to LEGO Ideas and give the model your votes. You can find the project at the following link. Many thanks!   http://bit.ly/bricksblooms     

 

I hope you like my newest MOC and thanks very much for reading. As always, there are many more pics on my Flickr page and feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Bricked1980

[jimmynick]

For me, the mock-Tudor part of the building steals the show. That's a nice little lawnmower you have, as well. Great work all around, and the renderings are spectacular.

[paupadros]

Great model! Really have had a good time browsing through the images and the details. I will admit that my first thought was that this did not appear as striking as your Post Office probably due to the layout not being as daring. The ground floor is beautiful, especially the garden center's: the oval steps up, the blue awnings (AS reference? ) and (I believe) a sunflower). The design is very well finished off and very stylishly solves some of the things I didn't quite like with the Post Office. This pops much more in a small image than your previous did, which gives it an imposing appearance. I like the theme of the interiors too, I'd never seen anyone tackle something of that sort. Plus, your renderings are getting really good, although I can't quite see how you built the cornice of the main structure (you know, rooflines are my favourite bit to design and have a huge library of custom designs to be used for future models) so I'm interested in how other people tackle them.

Great job!

[jkris53406]

Very nice! I love the canopy on the garden center in the back.

[Kristel]

A gorgeous building, with so many details!  Love the canopy area out the back - this would have made a nice outdoor seating area for the cafe also.

[peedeejay]

Great stuff! At first I felt the white facade details at the front are too massive and it looks a bit like a gingerbread house but giving it some time it grew on me. Everything else is just wonderful with many lovely details.

[Digger of Bricks]

Blooming gorgeous!!! I just LOVE that angularly-set bay window on the upper third floor of the shop's left-hand half!  

[lightningtiger]

Awesome work again and thank you for raising the modular bar again.

Brick On ! 

[adwind]

I'm absolutely in love with how plants growing on the corner of the building, also little bushes made with clown's hair are awesome ))

[cimddwc]

A great building indeed, inside and outside!

[Bricked1980]

On 1/11/2019 at 4:41 PM, jamesn said:

For me, the mock-Tudor part of the building steals the show. That's a nice little lawnmower you have, as well. Great work all around, and the renderings are spectacular.

Thanks very much. Right from the start I wanted to include a timber framed section in the building. I think that section along with the green and yellow awning below it is probably my favourite part of the model. Glad you like the renders. I used mecabricks to create these.

On 1/11/2019 at 6:39 PM, paupadros said:

Great model! Really have had a good time browsing through the images and the details. I will admit that my first thought was that this did not appear as striking as your Post Office probably due to the layout not being as daring. The ground floor is beautiful, especially the garden center's: the oval steps up, the blue awnings (AS reference? ) 

Thanks @paupadros Yes I was concerned that this one might end up looking a bit simple compared to the Post Office. When I look back at The Queen Bricktoria or Brick Square Post Office, some of the details around the roofs, windows etc look almost a bit too "over designed" if that makes sense. I wanted this one to have a cleaner, less fussy appearance which is probably why it appears to have a more toned down appearance. This one contains almost 1000 bricks less than the post office, that was intentional as I wanted to keep the parts count less than 3000 so that it would qualify for Lego Ideas. 

I didn't intentionally base the blue awnings on AS but I agree they do look quite similar.

On 1/11/2019 at 6:39 PM, paupadros said:

I can't quite see how you built the cornice of the main structure (you know, rooflines are my favourite bit to design and have a huge library of custom designs to be used for future models) so I'm interested in how other people tackle them.

The cornice is quite simple really. It's mostly made up from cheese slopes and these pieces  turned on their sides.

On 1/11/2019 at 7:02 PM, jkris53406 said:

Very nice! I love the canopy on the garden center in the back.

Many thanks. Although modulars don't often tend to be very detailed at the back, I felt with a garden centre it was important to include almost as many features on the rear of the building as there are on the front.

On 1/11/2019 at 7:31 PM, Kristel said:

A gorgeous building, with so many details!  Love the canopy area out the back - this would have made a nice outdoor seating area for the cafe also.

Thank you very much. Good idea, some outdoor seating for the cafe would have worked well.

On 1/11/2019 at 10:29 PM, peedeejay said:

Great stuff! At first I felt the white facade details at the front are too massive and it looks a bit like a gingerbread house

I hadn't considered that, but yes I see what you mean about the gingerbread house appearance. That's probably a result of me designing this one over the Christmas holidays. 

On 1/11/2019 at 10:29 PM, peedeejay said:

Everything else is just wonderful with many lovely details.

Glad you like it. Thanks very much.

23 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Blooming gorgeous!!! I just LOVE that angularly-set bay window on the upper third floor of the shop's left-hand half!  

Thanks @Digger of Bricks Glad you like that window design. 

11 hours ago, lightningtiger said:

Awesome work again and thank you for raising the modular bar again.

Brick On ! 

Thanks. Glad you like this one. 

10 hours ago, adwind said:

I'm absolutely in love with how plants growing on the corner of the building, also little bushes made with clown's hair are awesome ))

Thanks. The plant climbing up the wall from top to bottom is important as it helps to break up the joints between each floor and helps to give a bit of life to the building. It's also a good way to inject a bit of subtle colour in to the model.

5 hours ago, cimddwc said:

A great building indeed, inside and outside!

I'm glad you like it. Thanks a lot.

 

[ControlAltBrick]

you really do some of the best renders in the net!

[Digger of Bricks]

11 hours ago, Bricked1980 said:

Thanks @Digger of Bricks Glad you like that window design. 

Congratulations on being frontpaged!!! 

[ReplicaOfLife]

Solid build with briliant details inside & on the ground floor.

To be honest though, the upper stories don't work that well for me, for three reasons:
I'm not a big fan of buildings that are dominated by that kind of american style cornices with a flat roofline. I like it if used for variety, but having it over the entire width of a larger building just feels a bit boring to me, unless it's broken up by some aditional detail. I'm also a bit on the fence regarding the color scheme of white, sand-green and medium dark flesh (? is it? It's kinda hard to tell from the renderings), though that might very well work. I'd have to see it in real bricks . Lastly, the angled bay window on the third floor feels out of place and a bit nonsensical to me. But it's something different for sure .

Needless to say, that's all down to personal taste, and what you did objectively is damn good - it just doesn't do as much for me as some of your earlier builds.

On to the stuff I like: The exterior of the ground-floor is brilliant and has lots of great small details throughout. The awning at the back is simple but extremely effective - that's such a great piece. The use of the corner panels as facade detail on the mock-tudor sub-build is also a nice touch. And as I already said, there's lots of great detail inside. The MOCer in me wants to add some tiling everywhere, but of course I see why you left it out .

 

Btw, would be cool if you linked to larger resolution versions of the smaller pics. I found them all on flickr, but not everyone knows where to look.

Edited January 13, 2019 by RogerSmith

[Mylenium]

Looks lovely!

Mylenium

[Graupensuppe]

Looks wonderful! Much better than this year's official modular set.

[koalayummies]

Awesome MOC Bricked1980. Sand green, nougat and white look great together on the larger side. Excellent use of space, parts and colors throughout.

[AFOLguy1970]

5 hours ago, Graupensuppe said:

Looks wonderful! Much better than this year's official modular set.

Thank you for not making me be the first one to say that!  If this had been the modular this year, I would be setting aside the $200 without question.  Alas, they are probably finalizing a burnt out warehouse for us with a daycare on the second level and a bail bonds office on the third level. 

As always, excellent work on the MOC.  I like the color scheme, and there are lots of fun details like the textured roof, the ivy effect, and the 90 degree windows that project out on the highest level.  Even the back looks awesome!  Easily supported and best of luck!

 

[dragonk1ng]

The moment I saw this featured on the front page, I thought it was an official set and was ready to throw money at it. The Tudor style really complements the gardening theme. Everything is so vibrant and is bursting with joy. I can stare at this forever.

[Agent 86]

I'm not a fan of garden centres, but this is a lovely build.

In particular, the façade has numerous features to capture the eye, but it doesn't look overly cluttered or "busy". It's very impressive how you've melded two different architectural styles and so many brick built details, but in such a complimentary and aesthetically pleasing way.

[Bricked1980]

First of all... A big thanks to anyone on EB who has supported this on LEGO Ideas over the weekend! It has now passed 300 votes in 3 days so thanks very much guys!

 

On 1/13/2019 at 10:12 AM, ControlAltBrick said:

you really do some of the best renders in the net!

Thanks very much, although I am quite a novice when it comes to 3D rendering. All these images were created using Mecabricks. I must give credit to @Scrubs who has put so much work in to creating the Mecabricks renderfarm, which makes it easy for anyone to create photo realistic pictures even with limited knowledge of rendering.

23 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Congratulations on being frontpaged!!! 

Thanks a lot!  And thanks to the EB staff for putting this on the front page! 

20 hours ago, RogerSmith said:

Solid build with briliant details inside & on the ground floor.

Thanks and I'm glad you like the ground floor and details overall.

20 hours ago, RogerSmith said:

To be honest though, the upper stories don't work that well for me, for three reasons:

Thanks for this too... I appreciate your constructive criticism of the upper floors. I think sometimes I perhaps get a bit carried away with trying to add in too much texture and details to the facades. I did try to tone this back a bit compared to my previous modulars but perhaps I still got a bit carried away with the white detailing on the upper floors of the main building. I'll take your points on board for my next modular design. 

20 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Looks lovely!

Thanks very much! 

15 hours ago, Graupensuppe said:

Looks wonderful! Much better than this year's official modular set.

Thanks, glad you think so.  By coincidence, the amount of bricks I used in this MOC are pretty close to the amount used in this years Corner Garage.

15 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Awesome MOC Bricked1980. Sand green, nougat and white look great together on the larger side. Excellent use of space, parts and colors throughout.

Thanks very much koalayummies! Glad you like the design! 

10 hours ago, AFOLguy1970 said:

Thank you for not making me be the first one to say that!  If this had been the modular this year, I would be setting aside the $200 without question.  Alas, they are probably finalizing a burnt out warehouse for us with a daycare on the second level and a bail bonds office on the third level. 

As always, excellent work on the MOC.  I like the color scheme, and there are lots of fun details like the textured roof, the ivy effect, and the 90 degree windows that project out on the highest level.  Even the back looks awesome!  Easily supported and best of luck!

Thanks very much indeed for the positive comments. I'm glad you liked it enough to give it your support on LEGO Ideas, it's much appreciated! 

10 hours ago, dragonk1ng said:

The moment I saw this featured on the front page, I thought it was an official set and was ready to throw money at it. The Tudor style really complements the gardening theme. Everything is so vibrant and is bursting with joy. I can stare at this forever.

Thanks a lot. I'm pleased you like the design. The small tudor style section at the side was one of my favourite parts to create. It was inspired by trips to Stratford upon Avon in the UK where there are lots of old tudor, timber framed buildings dotted around in between more modern styles of architecture. That's the general look I was trying to re-create with this model.

10 hours ago, Agent 86 said:

I'm not a fan of garden centres, but this is a lovely build.

In particular, the façade has numerous features to capture the eye, but it doesn't look overly cluttered or "busy". It's very impressive how you've melded two different architectural styles and so many brick built details, but in such a complimentary and aesthetically pleasing way.

I wanted to create a garden centre because I've never come across one tackled as a modular before. I was a bit concerned whether this would really gel with people though, especially as a LEGO Ideas project, because it is arguably not a very exiting subject matter for a building. Anyway I'm glad you like the model. Thanks very much!

[essel]

What a stunning modular! It's detailed, colourful, original… Of course I supported it right away on Lego Ideas 

If it were on sale I'd buy it right away! (Let's hope this becomes the first Ideas modular building!)

Keep up the good work!

[Cylo]

Great work! 

[Kai NRG]

This is a great modular, excellent choice of colors and I'm impressed by the detail inside and out!

[rodiziorobs]

Wow, this is really something! I'm not familiar with your other modulars, so I'll just comment on this one. I love the colors, it looks bright and inviting. The greenhouse on the back is a nice touch that I hadn't expected.

On 1/13/2019 at 8:13 AM, RogerSmith said:

the angled bay window on the third floor feels out of place and a bit nonsensical to me. But it's something different for sure

I really like the angled window, it's one of my favorite parts. I do feel like it seems a bit out of place, though, probably because of the rounded balcony and steps in the same vertical space. If the jutting angle were present from top to bottom it might feel more coherent, but it also might feel like too much. Anyway, it's a minor quibble; overall, I really do like it. The whole building is quite eye-catching.