Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[Vilhelm22]

On 1/5/2021 at 5:08 PM, paupadros said:

If anyone is interested, I wrote an article for Brickset on how Lego achieves good compositions on their modulars and examples of how I use composition for my own models:

https://brickset.com/article/57168/the-composition-of-modular-buildings

Btw, (late) happy new year everyone!

Very nice and interesting read - several good points!  The articles on Brickset are usually some of the best imho, and this is no exception.

[paupadros]

On 1/6/2021 at 7:43 PM, Lyichir said:

Thank you for this. I really enjoyed your article, and feel it did a good job in both explaining what makes many of the "official" modular designs so effective and showing how that can be applied in other creative ways.

Thank you!

On 1/6/2021 at 11:15 PM, Aanchir said:

Lovely article! I suspect that being able to understand the individual strengths of the official Modular Building sets on such a detailed level has had a big impact on how you've been able to create such amazingly distinctive and appealing Modular Building designs of your own!

Regrettably, I have not yet been able to bring any modular building designs of my own to completion, and I think a big part of that is that even if I have a lot of separate ideas for architectural styles, compositions, or particular sorts of homes or businesses that I want to try designing modular buildings around, I often have a harder time synthesizing those design elements into one complete design that feels really unique and compelling on ALL of those levels.

Hopefully after reading this article I'll be at least a little better equipped to overcome some of those stumbling blocks. But I also hope you consider writing more "building tip" articles like this in the future, because you clearly have a lot of insights to share, and also a great talent for communicating those insights! That said, I don't mean to take your time and effort for granted, so even if you don't plan on writing any other articles like this in the immediate future, I will try to set aside some time on my own to read some of the other articles you've written for sites and publications like Brickset and Hispabrick that I'd previously missed out on. I know I'll definitely have a lot to learn from them!

It definitely has had a major impact. Once you have a good grasp of what has already been done, innovating is much easier. On that second paragraph, I 100% agree. A lot of modulars have great techniques or great colour schemes or great composition, but knitting a great all-round modular is actually pretty hard. Sometimes, your best bet is just to have a couple of buildings in mind as inspiration that have a similar flair and try to knit their feature together. Obviously, there's a "Legoification" that happens along the way, sometimes a direct translation of the actual architecture and sometimes inspired by the pieces themselves.

Articles such as these take a lot of time to put together (it's writing, correcting, all the graphic work and for the HispaBrick article, even translating...) but I intend to to articles on specific parts of a modular (i.e. ground levels, cornices...) and maybe another about colour schemes. It's always a bit of a challenge as I'm aware that most of my design choices are not well received by many (especially the bold colour combinations) so I still need to figure out how to put it best so that it doesn't feel so "this is my way and this is the only way" because it's definitely not. I might also do one where I invite other fellow modular designers for some questions.

On 1/7/2021 at 11:59 AM, Vilhelm22 said:

Very nice and interesting read - several good points!  The articles on Brickset are usually some of the best imho, and this is no exception.

Thanks!

[merman]

Just finished building the Police Station and something struck me: there are no Technic pins sticking out on the sides. 
 

Could this be a sign this is the last Modular? It is the only set that does not include the pins. It does have the Technic bricks with holes on the side however. 

[koalayummies]

1 hour ago, merman said:

Just finished building the Police Station and something struck me: there are no Technic pins sticking out on the sides. 
 

Could this be a sign this is the last Modular? It is the only set that does not include the pins. It does have the Technic bricks with holes on the side however. 

The black Technic friction pins are listed in the inventories on both Brickset and Bricklink. 2 in set and 1 extra. They're also shown in the back of the instruction manual inventory.

[SollX]

2 hours ago, merman said:

Could this be a sign this is the last Modular?

No, they still have to do a postoffice. XD

[Blazej_Holen]

51 minutes ago, SollX said:

No, they still have to do a postoffice. XD

I think that School, Museum and or grocery store should be prior. ;)

[Ray Oliver]

2 hours ago, koalayummies said:

The black Technic friction pins are listed in the inventories on both Brickset and Bricklink. 2 in set and 1 extra. They're also shown in the back of the instruction manual inventory.

They're used elsewhere in the set though.

[koalayummies]

2 hours ago, Ray Oliver said:

They're used elsewhere in the set though.

Dang, last modular confirmed!

[RichardGoring]

3 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Dang, last modular confirmed!

Maybe LEGO, like many of us, ran out of shelf space for them, and didn't want to rearrange things or move.

[Stuartn]

4 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Dang, last modular confirmed!

Well, the last modular in a line at least - the next one cannot connect to it!

 

[Rick]

12 hours ago, merman said:

Just finished building the Police Station and something struck me: there are no Technic pins sticking out on the sides. 
 

Could this be a sign this is the last Modular? It is the only set that does not include the pins. It does have the Technic bricks with holes on the side however. 

I have not built mine yet, but I cannot believe I didn't read that in any review yet. I guess it could be interpreted as a sign of Lego switching to plates for the base of the modulars after all.

[SollX]

3 hours ago, Stuartn said:

Well, the last modular in a line at least - the next one cannot connect to it!

 

Next modular can have pins again, and can connect to it.

i think it will be the middle XD

1 hour ago, Rick said:

I have not built mine yet, but I cannot believe I didn't read that in any review yet. I guess it could be interpreted as a sign of Lego switching to plates for the base of the modulars after all.

If they want to switch, they would have to release some plates to put under the original baseplate to make it one plate high.

If not i might get my students to design and 3d print some for me.
(or i can also just place some plates under a baseplate to make it 2 plates high)
 

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by SollX

[Rick]

8 minutes ago, SollX said:

Next modular can have pins again, and can connect to it.

i think it will be the middle XD

Haha, I guess it could also be a sign we're halfway. The next decade of modulars will have their pins on the left.

But given the new road system that was introduced, I think this may signal the end of the baseplate for the modular line as well.

[merman]

The road system really is a City thing, not a Creator Expert feat. 

[ReplicaOfLife]

I'd hope they simply just forgot the pins, and somehow the error slipped by all quality control steps.

Modulars switching to regular plates for me would mark the end of the line. I hate that everything is plate-based in City and pretty much all the rest of Creator already.
I would solely concentrate on moccing then, modular-wise.

[RichardGoring]

Just now, ReplicaOfLife said:

I'd hope they simply just forgot the pins, and somehow the error slipped by all quality control steps.

Modulars switching to regular plates for me would mark the end of the line. I hate that everything is plate-based in City and pretty much all the rest of Creator already.
I would solely concentrate on moccing then, modular-wise.

But couldn't you just put any future modular on a baseplate anyway? Costs $6 extra, but still much cheaper, typically, than buying bricks for a MOC modular.

But on the idea of moving to plates instead of baseplates, does that impact the stability of the whole thing when you pick it up? Baseplates aren't that rigid, but they hold things together. If you used 4x 16x16 plates, you've got some very week points in the base. I don't trust picking up my Fairground Haunted House (which has 4x 16x16 plates) without putting it on a board.

[MartyMcFly]

Downloaded the instructions, and they don't show pins either.

[AFOLguy1970]

If they actually did eliminate the baseplate and go to regular plates, it would be curious how they handle the photos of the newest modular with the older ones.  

[Blazej_Holen]

And I thought that I have a missing parts (e.g. black pins) in my set. I did search for them through all bags and on the floor in case and never found them. Then I check inventory list at tje end of instructions and find out only 2 pins were included. Both used in different part of the build. Its strange... but as Mark Psiaki said a while before, one of the significant sign of the modular buildings is the 32x32 baseplate. If Lego decides to switch to the plate system rather than baseplate, I would expect 32 x 32 plate. Still I hope that they maintain baseplates. I consider them better. 

[Fuppylodders]

But why bother not including the pins but the technic bricks? It makes no sense. If that's so you 'can if you want to' connect it then 2 pins isn't going to break the bank for them to add them. You literally get a spare pin most of the time anyway, so to add one single pin takes nothing. 

[Withacee]

Hmm, an interesting observation, no connecting pins.
Like @Fuppylodderssays, with the technic bricks, it makes no sense.
Maybe LEGO are just trying to confuse us

We never use the pins anyway. Ever tried to reorder a row of 12 modulars in a city with the pins in?

Interesting to see this develop; the theory of the new road plates as well.
Our modulars are already lifted by one plate to ensure a raised walkway against the normal "old" road plates, but we have no intention of switching to the new system at all.

[Lyichir]

14 hours ago, Fuppylodders said:

But why bother not including the pins but the technic bricks? It makes no sense. If that's so you 'can if you want to' connect it then 2 pins isn't going to break the bank for them to add them. You literally get a spare pin most of the time anyway, so to add one single pin takes nothing. 

My only guess is that they decided that the inclusion of pins like that made the finished model paradoxically feel less "complete"? Since it implies additional construction that isn't contained within, and breaks the square footprint of the set ever so slightly. Still, it's an odd decision to say the least. Far from a deal-breaker, certainly (since pins are incredibly common, come as spares regularly, and anyone with another modular set to connect also has pins from those sets), but a strange omission after this many years of including them.

[jus1973]

9 hours ago, Withacee said:

Our modulars are already lifted by one plate to ensure a raised walkway against the normal "old" road plates, but we have no intention of switching to the new system at all.

Out of interest, did you re build the Modulars onto plates, or do you just place the baseplates they’re normally built on, onto the road plates to give the height?

[Vilhelm22]

On the topic of pins, 80107 Spring Lantern Festival has them on the left, which is unlike all the modulars.  It's possible that they've decided to switch side?  Another thing I've noticed is that I'm pretty sure it's the first one with lampposts on DBG rather than a black 2x2 plate, or nothing.

[Withacee]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:34 PM, jus1973 said:

Out of interest, did you re build the Modulars onto plates, or do you just place the baseplates they’re normally built on, onto the road plates to give the height?

We put one layer of plates on the base plate before we build the set.
Wherever the plates are visible, we choose the required colour (colour of the base plate), for the other plates we just use random colours we have handy.
Once the plates are on, we leave them on the base plate (sticker on the back with the set number, since they are not interchangeable) whenever we disassemble the set.