The Jersey Brick Guy

Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

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39 minutes ago, BrickFit26 said:

I think so too. But maybe the GWP is another gift for the 15th anniversary.

When do GWPs like this usually get announced?

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I'm probably in the minority here, but I wish there was a play feature.  I really enjoyed the ones in the Detective's Office (hidden passage to smuggle cookies), Brick Bank (laundry safe), etc. 

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I've just got the Creator Expert Tower Bridge and Big Ben sets (for only $300 total, which was excellent). After I've built the main models, I'd like to use them to build some kind of town hall type thing that incorporates the clock tower. There's one on Rebrickable, but it's very short. Has anyone seen any MOCs that do this, which might help with inspiration?

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On 12/19/2021 at 2:53 PM, DBlegonerd7 said:

@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. 

 

10270 Bookshop was set in the fall. The tree had yellow leaves, there was a few on the ground & the kid had a scarf & beanie on. 

On 12/20/2021 at 5:23 PM, MT480 said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I wish there was a play feature.  I really enjoyed the ones in the Detective's Office (hidden passage to smuggle cookies), Brick Bank (laundry safe), etc. 

While play features don’t do much for me I really did(and do) enjoy those aspects of the sets. It added quite a bit to both sets, despite putting into question Ace Brickman’s detecting skills...

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11 hours ago, Vindicare said:

While play features don’t do much for me I really did(and do) enjoy those aspects of the sets. It added quite a bit to both sets, despite putting into question Ace Brickman’s detecting skills...

He's being paid off with cookies. What a bargain.

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On 12/20/2021 at 1:54 PM, Bainter-ban said:

When do GWPs like this usually get announced?

Usually when the January calendar comes out. It will have all the promos for the month.

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On 12/21/2021 at 2:23 AM, MT480 said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I wish there was a play feature.  I really enjoyed the ones in the Detective's Office (hidden passage to smuggle cookies), Brick Bank (laundry safe), etc. 

No thanks.

Very glad they abandoned that.

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On 12/21/2021 at 1:23 AM, MT480 said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I wish there was a play feature.  I really enjoyed the ones in the Detective's Office (hidden passage to smuggle cookies), Brick Bank (laundry safe), etc. 

I never minded them, if they didn’t compromise the build too much.  The Bank and Laundromat i thought worked well, however i thought the cookie tunnel in the detectives office was a bit forced into the building.

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On 12/16/2021 at 11:49 AM, 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.

Unlikely - the hotel is stylistically an older building and as such the art gallery would have come later.

That means there needs to be a reason why the hotel is an odd shape, the Flatiron building in NY being constrained by the street pattern for example, but sometimes you can get other less obvious and visible reasons.

The most common thing to note is tall buildings usually need deep foundations - lets imagine that when the hotel was being built there was something running just below ground like an underground railway - culverted river, etc and that precluded the construction of deep foundations and so buildings are angled to suit.

Here is an example in south east London - note the way the railway tunnel slices through the housing and has not got any buildings directly above it. https://www.google.com/maps/place/118-116+Langton+Way,+London+SE3+7JT/@51.4747971,0.0193031,275m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8a834e4faccc9:0x513191bdc68bee9!8m2!3d51.4747958!4d0.0199926

As for the smaller building there are two approaches here. The first is that whatever was below ground was sufficient to support a single story structure (and no more) or alternatively a few decades after the hotel was built a 'raft' structure was constructed allowing a building to be created without transmitting the load onto what was directly beneath. The latter is perhaps less likely though as 'rafts' can usually be engineered to support buildings many stories high.

 

 

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5 hours ago, jus1973 said:

I never minded them, if they didn’t compromise the build too much.  The Bank and Laundromat i thought worked well, however i thought the cookie tunnel in the detectives office was a bit forced into the building.

For my part, I didn't mind it… the stairs in the covered alley, the were an attractive detail that suited the "film noir" inspired setting, and the enclosed space underneath of that raised portion of the alley would've otherwise gone to waste. The openings under the barbershop stairs and behind the pool hall trophy cabinet were also integrated well enough that they'd make attractive interior details even if you didn't know about the accompanying play feature or storyline. Plus, a secret smuggling tunnel for our intrepid sleuth to discover as he follows the clues are the sort of detail that makes perfect sense for the noir detective genre!

I do think it's fun to see these sorts of features, especially since adult-level sets like this allow for the designers to show off the full scope of their creative talent in how cleverly and efficiently they conceal them in an otherwise perfectly polished-looking build. Same with other play features like the Murphy bed in Parisian Restaurant, the oven and sofa-bed in Assembly Square, the garage door and vehicle jack in the Corner Garage, and the escape tunnel under the Police Station.

4 hours ago, Phil-B259 said:

Unlikely - the hotel is stylistically an older building and as such the art gallery would have come later.

Couldn't the gallery building have been renovated with a more modern facade after the hotel was built?

I could also imagine a flatiron-style building getting other buildings added next to it if the gallery building were built on a plot of land where there was once a narrow road, which was since disused as new roads were built that could better handle increasing traffic.

Edited by Aanchir

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2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

 

Couldn't the gallery building have been renovated with a more modern facade after the hotel was built?

 

It could - but we come back to the point of why make the larger hotel such an odd shape!

 

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I could also imagine a flatiron-style building getting other buildings added next to it if the gallery building were built on a plot of land where there was once a narrow road, which was since disused as new roads were built that could better handle increasing traffic.

A road is a bad example - in the UK a public right of way (i.e. roads, footpaths, etc are hard to remove) so the likelihood of one being blocked off at a later date to build a small building is extremely unlikely.

It could conceivably have been left as an access to other property behind all the buildings facing the street, but the usual methods of accessing such places (in Europe) would be an arch allowing buildings to be erected above the opening.

A river that was later put into a culvert, a subterranean railway restricting building heights due to shallow foundations or perhaps a tramway / rail siding of some sort are all far more likely contenders as to why the hotel builders were forced to adopt such an unusual shape on what is otherwise a square plot.

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Hello there, I know that`s a little bit off topic, but I just have to ask it. Does anyone else`s Studio 2.0 not work properly since the newest update? I am trying to design my own modular hotel right now, but Studio 2.0 doesn`t let me. It`s lagging all the time, doesn`t react to my mouse clicks and I`m not even able to upload the bricks on the Bricklink wanted list. Could anyone with the possibly same problems help me?

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3 hours ago, Phil-B259 said:

A road is a bad example - in the UK a public right of way (i.e. roads, footpaths, etc are hard to remove) so the likelihood of one being blocked off at a later date to build a small building is extremely unlikely.

Fair enough. My understanding is that this set was inspired by Mediterranean/southern European buildings, not British ones (judging from the shape, colors, and "art nouveau" architecture, this hotel in Lisbon may have been one significant source of inspiration), but I can't speak to how likely the sort of changes to the street layout I described would be in any of those countries, either.

For my part, I just think it's nice to have a wedge-shaped building like this as part of the Modular Buildings Collection, regardless of how much sense it makes on a rectangular grid of streets. It certainly makes for a beautiful and unique appearance, whereas a square shape would feel more repetitive when compared to the Cafe Corner or the building on the right side of Assembly Square.

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Sounds like I'm in the minority then, but I love Boutique Hotel. 

I think it proves once again that magic really happens when the designers go with European architecture. This isn't to say that they haven't produced good U.S-centric modulars (Fire Brigade being my favourite), but generally the European ones are a lot more interesting. There is a great deal more architecture to choose from and less focus on play features.

The Hotel appears to be inspired by turn-of-the-Century, Mediterranean design - though there are subtle Art Deco references too.

The gallery is compact, but keep in mind that a 'gallery' doesn't necessarily need to be large. Independent artists more often than not rent small boutiques/spaces as they're just cheaper.

My only gripe is the height; it could do with being a little larger. I know we say this often when speaking of modulars, but a hotel should be as grand in scale as it is in detail. I also get the designers don't want to repeat floors too often as it would get tedious. 

So all in all I'd say it's a difficult one to display with existing modulars, but on it's own it looks beautiful. 

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On 12/22/2021 at 10:01 AM, koalayummies said:

He's being paid off with cookies. What a bargain.

Must’ve been oatmeal...:sick: Maybe that’s why he’s doing such a shoddy job.

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4 hours ago, nesquik said:

Sounds like I'm in the minority then, but I love Boutique Hotel. 

I think it proves once again that magic really happens when the designers go with European architecture.

Funny. I think the architecture is very Cuban.

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I also really like the new modular, although there's not many I don't like. The Downtown Diner and Corner Garage were the last ones which I felt weren't really of usual standard, but the rest have been pretty spot on over the past few years.

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12 hours ago, nesquik said:

The Hotel appears to be inspired by turn-of-the-Century, Mediterranean design - though there are subtle Art Deco references too.

Could it have been inspired by the Carlton Hotel in Cannes perhaps? At least the corner and the tower.

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Or it could be the Saratoga Hotel Havana Cuba.
Or it could be the Gran Teatro de La Habana because it has a tower.

It's LEGO, it could be anything and everything.

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The Lego Designers wouldn't wanto to portray a certain real building with this modular. If at all, it is a amalgam of dozens or hundreds of pictures of hotel buildings of a certain style they examined for research.

I also think that they want to come up with something new with every modular and that's why we see this odd shape. Corner building or inverted corner are aleady there and so they wanted (or had to) to do something new and opted for a unique shape for the hotel :shrug_oh_well:

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4 hours ago, Maple said:

Or it could be the Saratoga Hotel Havana Cuba.
Or it could be the Gran Teatro de La Habana because it has a tower.

It's LEGO, it could be anything and everything.

I agree with Yperio_Bricks that Lego probably have taken inspiration from a lot of different hotels and it's not a perfect match or anything, but Carlton Hotel has a slight angle in one corner, the tower dome is very similar, and even the palm trees around it look like the one in the set with the rougher trunk.

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On 12/24/2021 at 12:48 AM, Aanchir said:

Fair enough. My understanding is that this set was inspired by Mediterranean/southern European buildings, not British ones (judging from the shape, colors, and "art nouveau" architecture, this hotel in Lisbon may have been one significant source of inspiration), but I can't speak to how likely the sort of changes to the street layout I described would be in any of those countries, either.

For my part, I just think it's nice to have a wedge-shaped building like this as part of the Modular Buildings Collection, regardless of how much sense it makes on a rectangular grid of streets. It certainly makes for a beautiful and unique appearance, whereas a square shape would feel more repetitive when compared to the Cafe Corner or the building on the right side of Assembly Square.

I agree the set is more akin to a country bordering the Mediterranean Sea than the UK but the point still stands. Yes you can find lots of oddly shaped buildings due to a non linear / grid road pattern but the key point is these roads still exist!

 

That is the fundamental problem with the set as released the single story art gallery add on just doesn’t make sense - particularly in a series of buildings which are quite clearly done on a ‘grid’ theme.

 

The earlier test designs shown up thread were much more realistic due to the presence of an alleyway between two full height buildings.

 

The hotel is attractive though so I might get two sets and turn it into a proper corner building with the art gallery as a seperate structure to one side - such an setup would be far more representative of the real world.

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I somewhat understand a few complaints but on the whole I don't get why this set seems to be getting THIS much dislike. When you have so many other modulars which are so very square, it's nice to see something like this that really goes in a completely different direction. Still waiting to see what GWP is.

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2 hours ago, jedisquidward said:

I somewhat understand a few complaints but on the whole I don't get why this set seems to be getting THIS much dislike. When you have so many other modulars which are so very square, it's nice to see something like this that really goes in a completely different direction. Still waiting to see what GWP is.

Because people are never satisfied. I like it. I'll change bits, maybe even buy two for a bigger hotel.

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