Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[badbob001]

7 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Kinda reminds me of years ago when I attempted to come up with an interior floor plan for the Green Grocer's upper floors… I quickly realized that even omitting bathrooms or kitchens, it was hard to realistically house enough tenants to justify the set's FOUR mailboxes! When I looked up other people's attempts I quickly realized it wasn't something other people really concerned themselves with at all — most simply treated it as a single-family townhouse.

You know, you can just add more middle floors to achieve the number of apartments you want. This "modular" feature was advertised on the Cafe Corner box, but not since then I think.

[bright22]

9 hours ago, TheLegoDr said:

I know I'm in the minority. The more I look at it, the less I like it. Something about it just is off to me. I mean, I'll buy it eventually so LEGO wins anyway, but I won't build it. I'll have to come up with a different MOC out of some of the pieces sometime. 

If you match this one with other creator modular buildings except The Police Station, you will find out that's a big issue in the layout, The 2nd level of the hotel will have a really small gap to face the wall of other modular buildings. It looks extremely odd/ugly if you put this hotel next to Assembly Square

I am not surprised for your point of views, it's totally understandable. I own all the creator modular buildings except The Fire Station and the Police Station.

The price could be another crucial issues too, the cost/pieces is really high for this sets too except Police Station.

As I said, I won't be against this set (compare to The Police Station), it's only a bit above average individual Creator Modular.. plus it is not so good to join the other creator modular together......

I would only buy it if that's some good discount

[Citromon]

16 hours ago, TheLegoDr said:

I know I'm in the minority. The more I look at it, the less I like it. Something about it just is off to me. I mean, I'll buy it eventually so LEGO wins anyway, but I won't build it. I'll have to come up with a different MOC out of some of the pieces sometime. 

You're not. I didn't like it at first look, and I definitely won't buy it. For 200$ there are just better sets out there. 

[Withacee]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:24 AM, Maple said:

I would just like a functioning website from the biggest toy company in the world.

Oh, don't get me started on that one!
Over a hundred separate items put in the bricks and pieces shopping cart (took ages), only to get an error message, resulting in an empty cart
We experience that very regularly. Buttons and links that do not work, wish lists that mysteriously change content, payment errors, you name it.
We had a few major overhauls of the site already over the years, and it is still crap.
One would think they should be able to afford a few decent web programmers...

[Aanchir]

On 12/17/2021 at 7:07 AM, RichardGoring said:

Interesting images of some of the prototypes for the hotel in this snippet of an interview with the designer.

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-10297-boutique-hotel-prototype-models/

It's Brick Fanatics though, so expect the interview to generate about 20 million posts... And a few billion internal links.

The two shown look very interesting. The fourth floor on the first is really nice, and I like the idea of the alley too. Gives it more of a reason to be at an angle.

Neat! I've dabbled in designs for a corner building layout with a diagonal alleyway/courtyard on Stud.io, and it'd certainly be neat to see in an official set in the future. I don't care as much for that version of the Boutique Hotel so much, though, since it doesn't quite capture the "organic" art nouveau look as well, and the overall composition feels more visually crowded when viewed from the street.

I do greatly prefer the arrangement of the palm leaves in the third version to the arrangement in the final set, though! Even if it's still a bit artificial looking, it has more visual "flow" than the chaotically splayed-out leaves in the final design, and the connections to the trunk are less awkwardly exposed.

17 hours ago, badbob001 said:

You know, you can just add more middle floors to achieve the number of apartments you want. This "modular" feature was advertised on the Cafe Corner box, but not since then I think.

Oh, absolutely! In my opinion that's one of the defining factors of the Modular Buildings Collection, even if relatively few builders recognize it or take advantage of it (especially due to the price of recreating some sets' middle floors). But in this case my hope was to come up with an interior design that would work with just the base set — no additional floors — and as it turns out the mailboxes wouldn't really make much sense that way.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Aanchir

[badbob001]

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

But in this case my hope was to come up with an interior design that would work with just the base set — no additional floors — and as it turns out the mailboxes wouldn't really make much sense that way.

Triple-decker bunk beds? Capsule hotel?

 

 

[Blazej_Holen]

So much dislikes and “hate” for the BH set… interesting. From the perspective of used techniques, new flesh-coloured bricks, size (in terms of number of pieces), overall look and aesthetics its really nice one since… AS? Maybe DD? Finally some proper accomodation for minifigs, complete barhroom, spacial atrium, good number of minifigs… I myself like it a lot. It almost seems to me, that everyone wants big box (single bussines building) with nice fasade and sparse interior and nothing more… 

[BrickFit26]

23 hours ago, LegoDW said:

 

From the Alternate build article. 

Wow!!!  Could you imagine if we got this version.

 

“Specifically, that patio [above the art gallery] is there to make sure that we don’t hide the billboard on the Police Station. At one point the building was mirrored the other way over the angle, and that was completely hiding this beautiful detail that people who bought this building probably want to show off.”

 

I'm really curious to know why they didn't go with this model instead. Budget?

[RichardGoring]

15 minutes ago, BrickFit26 said:

I'm really curious to know why they didn't go with this model instead. Budget?

I suspect budget, and that the interior space would be really cramped, given what they typically try to do with it.

[Maple]

Budget for sure.

7 hours ago, Blazej_Holen said:

It almost seems to me, that everyone wants big box (single bussines building) with nice fasade and sparse interior and nothing more… 

A lot of us just want a building that fits next to other buildings. There are other ways they could have had a hotel and art gallery that made more sense / use of space. If I knew how to LEGO CAD I'd show you.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Maple

[SFmuscle73]

12 hours ago, Withacee said:

Oh, don't get me started on that one!
Over a hundred separate items put in the bricks and pieces shopping cart (took ages), only to get an error message, resulting in an empty cart
We experience that very regularly. Buttons and links that do not work, wish lists that mysteriously change content, payment errors, you name it.
We had a few major overhauls of the site already over the years, and it is still crap.
One would think they should be able to afford a few decent web programmers...

I agree!  This was a good of the top of your head recap!

It’s like Chevy Chase venting in Christmas Vacation -you just needed to end with “now where’s the Tylenol?” 

If I had time, I’d vent about the redeeming points program!!!

[Blazej_Holen]

7 hours ago, Maple said:

Budget for sure.

A lot of us just want a building that fits next to other buildings. There are other ways they could have had a hotel and art gallery that made more sense / use of space. If I knew how to LEGO CAD I'd show you.

Thar would be boring. Each building is unique in terms of style and thats a good thing. 

[ReplicaOfLife]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:00 AM, LegoDW said:

 

From the Alternate build article. 

Wow!!!  Could you imagine if we got this version.

 

That would've been very cool. Imho, you have to have that second full builidng for the angle on the hotel to really make sense.

But Lego will propably never give us a four storey building in the modular series. Or if they did, it'd be 300€.

 

On 12/16/2021 at 12:49 PM, fhurlbrink said:

Maybe, the art gallery had been built before the hotel. And a lot of time later the hotel has been built. Now the art gallery forced the angle of the hotel.

But if the art gallery was there before, why build that with the wird angle?

I mean, yeah, you could construct a narrative to make it work, but those things are rare in real life for a reason. Having an alleyway leading somewhere, like that prototype, just makes it all so much more logical.

[Maple]

7 hours ago, Blazej_Holen said:

Thar would be boring. Each building is unique in terms of style and thats a good thing. 

It's not the style that doesn't fit, different styles and trees are awesome. I mean literally fit next to other ones. You stick the BH next to other modulars and the rooms have a lovely view of the wall on the left. The designer could have done a few things to make it better, pushing the art gallery further back into the hotel, adding a rectangle area behind the stairs. But nope. We get a set that only fits in on one side.

I hope when it's released and people add it to the display they start to understand what I mean.

[Citromon]

2 hours ago, Maple said:

I hope when it's released and people add it to the display they start to understand what I mean.

I already sow some ways to add it to other buildings, and you're right, it just doesn't fit with other modulars. I try to imagine it with the ones I own and I can't do it. 

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, Maple said:

It's not the style that doesn't fit, different styles and trees are awesome. I mean literally fit next to other ones. You stick the BH next to other modulars and the rooms have a lovely view of the wall on the left. The designer could have done a few things to make it better, pushing the art gallery further back into the hotel, adding a rectangle area behind the stairs. But nope. We get a set that only fits in on one side.

I hope when it's released and people add it to the display they start to understand what I mean.

The thing is... that's not entirely unrealistic. It's not uncommon for real cities to have windows on buildings that overlook nothing but a narrow alley, if for no other reason than to allow more ventilation in the summer months (especially with older buildings that were designed before modern HVAC systems could allow for reliable air circulation in every part of the building). It's arguably less common in real world cities to have every building directly adjoin its neighbor, wall to wall, with no alley space between them. I get that having an alley or windows facing one is a less common feature for the modular series so far (with only a few such as the Downtown Diner including anything of the sort), but I don't see how introducing one that DOES include that sort of separation means that it's somehow incompatible with earlier models. In fact, as the article about earlier versions of the set point out, the lowered art gallery space was in fact specifically positioned to look better abutting the billboard and newsstand of the recent Police Station than a full adjoining wall would have! So far from being incompatible, those elements of the design were designed with compatibility being a specific consideration.

[BrickFit26]

Ugh that budget . That fiRst prototype would have been amazing to have though.

[Lion King]

Hey, did we ahve any sports in Modular Buildings line?

I don’t see basketball, soccer/football, ice hockey, or baseball stadiums. If I remember correctly, we have martial arts and dance lessons in Assembly Square, do we? 

I think it would be neat to see a basketball court next to a high school building (even tho 32 x 32 baseplate won’t be enough…). 

[Aanchir]

6 hours ago, Maple said:

I hope when it's released and people add it to the display they start to understand what I mean.

I understand what you mean, but I also think what buildings "fit" or "make sense" together the way you're describing is still highly subjective. I mean, I've seen plenty of positive AND negative comments about how it looks next to particular buildings like the Police Station, Parisian Restaurant, Bookshop, Corner Garage, or Assembly Square, rather than any sort of consensus about which buildings do or don't work.

And there are many more combinations that I don't think have been shown in ANY reviews so far, meaning that none of us can say for certain whether or not they'd "fit together" the way you're describing. Once the set is released and the instructions are added to LEGO.com, it'll be easier for folks to either test those combinations out either in real life or on software like stud.io, and share the results with others in the community.

For now, one option that would decidedly not obstruct the view from the guest room windows would be to place it next to the single-story "market" section of the Market Street set. And the upper stories of Detective's Office and Parisian Restaurant are all 10 studs from the back of their respective baseplates, making them potentially promising options in their own right.

Also, the Daily Bugle, while not officially part of the Modular Buildings Collection, is a fully modular-compatible set in which the building itself is six studs from the edges of the baseplate on either side and eight studs from the edges of the baseplate in the front and back. As such, it would leave quite a bit of room for the Boutique Hotel to breathe, although I doubt many would for the aesthetics of placing the Boutique Hotel right next to a massive skyscraper with such a rough, utilitarian-looking architectural style.

This is not by any means the first Modular Building that has elicited concerns that they don't fit or make sense next to neighboring buildings! A lot of people had the exact same concern about the Downtown Diner set, which similarly has a wall and windows facing a narrow gap along the left side of the baseplate. Similar concerns (albeit fewer in number, as far as I've seen) were raised about the gap on the right side of the Parisian Restaurant

Some builders ended up remedying those concerns either with extensive modding (for example, converting the whole set to a corner building) or by building a custom alleyway, park, public square, community garden, or other type of open-air property to display alongside the building in question. The same could be done here by builders who like the set's architectural style but not its placement on a city block.

But on the whole, whether you are content with options like these work for you or would rather skip this set entirely comes down to personal preference. There's no shame in skipping a building that you don't think works with your collection or layout, regardless of your reasons for feeling that way. And the designers of these sets certainly don't expect any of them to satisfy or make sense to everyone.

2 hours ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

Hey, did we ahve any sports in Modular Buildings line?

I don’t see basketball, soccer/football, ice hockey, or baseball stadiums. If I remember correctly, we have martial arts and dance lessons in Assembly Square, do we?

Yeah, boxing and weight training were featured in the Downtown Diner set, and there was a dance/ballet studio in Assembly Square. There were also darts and billiards in the Detective's Office set and table tennis in the Fire Brigade, though I doubt those are the sort of sport you were thinking about.

More sports-related content could be great, although a professional ice hockey rink, soccer/football field, or baseball/softball diamond would likely be impossible to fit in an official Modular Building set, since it'd require a pretty big arena plus spectator stands and two full teams of players to feel genuinely believable. For comparison, consider the size of the larger fields/courts/rinks from the LEGO Sports theme.

An amateur field for any of those sports could possibly work at a diminished scale, but probably not as part of the "official" Modular Buildings Collection, since it'd leave very little room on the base for any sort of actual, multi-story building. So like the the Spring Lantern Festival set, it'd likely have to be released as a stand-alone set or a set from another theme that just happens to be compatible with the Modular Buildings Collection.

One sport that I've felt for years would be a great fit for the Modular Buildings is bowling, both because it's an indoor sport with a long history, and because it would be hard to convincingly fit into a building with a smaller footprint than we've seen in official Modular Building sets. The biggest question there would be what to do with the upper stories of the building.

I could also easily imagine a Modular Building set including a amateur street basketball, street hockey, tennis court, or skate park in a vacant lot — either on 16x32 base adjoining a "half-size" building like the ones from the Market Street, Pet Shop, and Bookshop sets, or in the center of an expanded 48x32 base like Assembly Square with narrow buildings on two or three sides.

I also know that some buildings and schools in big cities have outdoor sports fields of that sort on the roof, with tall fences or nets to prevent balls, pucks, or players from falling onto the street below (a Google search for "rooftop basketball court", "rooftop tennis court", etc. should bring up plenty of examples). That could work in a Modular Building set if you figured out a good architectural style and floor plan to use for the rest of the building to keep it from looking too odd next to other sets.

Similarly, a rooftop swimming pool could be viable in a set, although most of those I've seen are at hotels. And needless to say, it would feel a bit redundant to see another modular hotel set any time in the near future!

Edited December 19, 2021 by Aanchir

[Lion King]

@Aanchir I absolutely agree with you on what you just said above!

To me, I do consider boxing and weightlifting/weight training as sports. But I am not sure about darts, billiards and dance/ballets are considered as sports tho but I will let people say “Yes it’s sports!”

Anways, I agree with you that ice hockey rink, baseball diamond field, and soccer/football field are impossible to be adapted into Modular Building for sure.  However, you do make a great point about street hockey and tennis court! It may be absurd if there wll be two 32 X 32 baseplates together to form a huge arena in Modular Buidling set and it may be very expensivef for AFOLs to buy. I completely forgot about that one. 

I would love to see an outdoor ice hockey rink. However, I don’t see any reason why it should be made into a Modular Building set - we always see Modular Buidling sets in spring/summer sceneries, not winter or fall ones.  If you put a winter-themed Modular Buidling next to other normal sets, it would be very odd and awkward for sure. I think street hockey would be 100% perfect. 

Oh, and speaking of darts…what about axe-throwing range? It can be either indoor or outdoor! :) 

I haven’t thought of a rooftop basketball/tennis court! It would be real neat to see. I think a rooftop swimming pool is a great idea as well. 

 

[TeriXeri]

A small Minigolf could also be something pretty funny to see on a modular rooftop or put in some empty space in a backalley corner/garden, it doesn't need to be big or playable, just give the illusion of a 1x1 stud hole.

The Friends theme had a 30203: Mini Golf Polybag from 2015 and that was only a 4x8 area and was even playable.

Edited December 19, 2021 by TeriXeri

[lifeinplastic]

I guess a sports shop could allow multiple sports equipment/accessories - there are plenty of existing moulds for racquets, bats, balls, etc.

Or perhaps a club shop - there are several baseball teams in Lego City - the Stackers, the Clutchers and the Champs.

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by lifeinplastic

[Lion King]

1 hour ago, TeriXeri said:

A small Minigolf could also be something pretty funny to see on a modular rooftop or put in some empty space in a backalley corner/garden, it doesn't need to be big or playable, just give the illusion of a 1x1 stud hole.

The Friends theme had a 30203: Mini Golf Polybag from 2015 and that was only a 4x8 area and was even playable.

Mini golf is a great idea! Mini golf in back alley sounds oddly cool!

 

15 minutes ago, lifeinplastic said:

I guess a sports shop could allow multiple sports equipment/accessories - there are plenty of existing moulds for racquets, bats, balls, etc.

Or perhaps a club shop - there are several baseball teams in Lego City - the Stackers, the Clutchers and the Champs.

 

That’s a great idea!

Or sports bar? I mean it’s a 18+ set. And include some exiting sports equipment as a decoration down and up walls. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by DBlegonerd7

[Yoggington]

On 12/17/2021 at 12:07 PM, RichardGoring said:

Interesting images of some of the prototypes for the hotel in this snippet of an interview with the designer.

https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-10297-boutique-hotel-prototype-models/

It's Brick Fanatics though, so expect the interview to generate about 20 million posts... And a few billion internal links.

The two shown look very interesting. The fourth floor on the first is really nice, and I like the idea of the alley too. Gives it more of a reason to be at an angle.

Thanks for linking this.

Seeing the design process and what was left by the wayside is very illuminating. While I quite like the new modular, there is certainly something off about it. The way it's gotta connect on a corner to any other modular at all is going to be very awkward.

Seeing what was left on the cutting room floor explains a lot, I have to assume price was the reason to cut back. That, or lack of space inside the smaller building.

This would be a much better fit all round, I think they lost a key functionality during development from this one to the end result. It's an actual corner now, and that central alley can link to the backs of the other buildings.

On the plus side, this gives us a big nudge in the direction required to fix it right up.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Yoggington

[Citromon]

A lot of you say that the price is the reason we didn't got the first variant, but I think, for a 15 years anniversary they could put a bigger price, like 250$ and it would be fine!