Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[BrickFit26]

More than one 1 a year wouldn't be on the budget. Thought I'd love to have more, but the prices!

[Lion King]

I would be delighted to see two modular buildings per a year. Expanding our cities is much fun! Plus,12 months of waiting until next modular building avaialbe is quite painful for me. However, the combined paces of two sets? Eh, it’s little too much.  

if I was a designer, I would release a 32x32 building in Janaury and a 16x32 building in July.  However, I don’t think it will work that way tho.

[Lego Conductor]

I always thought the idea of a yearly half size “modulaette” would be cool.

Think about a park, plaza, playground or even a cemetery ( cool for those who added the Haunted Mansion ) on a 32x32 baseplate.  Or even a small business (Farmer Market, Butcher, Hardware Store) 1 to 2 floors on a 16x32 baseplate.  You could even do an alleyway with some rubbish bins, cardboard boxes and a stray cat or two…that fire engine needs someway to the back entrance of the Fire Brigade.

Try to keep the cost to $75-$125usd and I think you have a winner.  Kinda like battle packs in Star Wars but for the Modular line.

[Lion King]

39 minutes ago, Lego Conductor said:

I always thought the idea of a yearly half size “modulaette” would be cool.

Think about a park, plaza, playground or even a cemetery ( cool for those who added the Haunted Mansion ) on a 32x32 baseplate.  Or even a small business (Farmer Market, Butcher, Hardware Store) 1 to 2 floors on a 16x32 baseplate.  You could even do an alleyway with some rubbish bins, cardboard boxes and a stray cat or two…that fire engine needs someway to the back entrance of the Fire Brigade.

Try to keep the cost to $75-$125usd and I think you have a winner.  Kinda like battle packs in Star Wars but for the Modular line.

Exaclty, that’s wht I was thinking the same way! Currently, I am hiding Bookshop and I didn’t realize it’s a split building (2 16x32 baseplates) and this gives me some more ieas.  A 16x32 building is a nice addition to our cities. It is also easier to arrange our cities if we have 16x32 buildings. 

Here are my ideas for the 16x32 building:

1.) Bowling Alley 

2.) Fortune Teller’s Shop

3.) Antique Store

4.) Jewelry Store

5.) Residential (we need MORE liviing… Townhouse, Apartment, Condo, etc)

6.) Daycare

7.) Travel Agency 

8.) Clinic

9.) Community Movie Theater (sure, we already have Palace Cinmera but it’s a small singe-movie scene theater with apartment above it just like I saw one or two in my area). 

10.) Botantical Garden with sculptures 

Although marketing is not my thing, I jsut don’t know how they will work out there?

Edited September 20, 2023 by Lion King

[AusMinifig]

Goodness LEGO is a tease, anyone else wish their lastest Instagram post was the modular?? They’ve got a close up of a florist build. I know it’s just a build post, but if this was the modular I would not be complaining.. if only the modular was this good 

[RichardGoring]

Very lovely indeed!

[Kalahari134]

On 9/20/2023 at 6:20 PM, Creation88 said:

Honestly I do not understand why we’re only getting 1 modular a year.

I'm rather glad we are, my wallet can only take so much

[Follows Closely]

I am 95% convinced that this is indeed a tease of the 2024 modular.

https://www.facebook.com/LEGO/videos/3581885955387612/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

[Lion King]

Ooooooo.

Those awnings, doorway, and windows are almost identical to the cafe from Assembly Square?

[BrickFit26]

Omg. That does look like a tease from LEGO.

[Follows Closely]

13 hours ago, Lion King said:

Ooooooo.

Those awnings, doorway, and windows are almost identical to the cafe from Assembly Square?

The longer I look the less convincing it is...

Edited September 22, 2023 by Follows Closely

[Agent 86]

On 9/21/2023 at 3:20 AM, Creation88 said:

Give us more and expand the line to 2 a year! 

I’d love two Modulars a year, although for budgeting reasons (and the ever increasing costs of Lego), perhaps one would need to be a half / 16-wide Modular.

[Lion King]

Follows Closely, no, I mean in the tease video, those awning, doorway and windows look almost same as the cafe from Assembly Square has. I know it is the flower shop in that video… 

I’m visually impaired so it’s easy for me to think wrongly what I see… Anyways, I think it’s best for me not to look into it too much.  By the way, the florist’s shop looks neat!

Edited September 22, 2023 by Lion King

[Follows Closely]

This teaser video reminds me of the when Back to the Future Delorean (10300) LEGO released a short teaser video that featured Marty McFly & Doc Brown, in Minifigure form, going on an adventure to find a missing piece in order to get home, along their way they travel to a Medieval town, that has a massive brick-built Castle at its centre. The new castle (10305) was there, but LEGO merged it with sonething old to make it not so obvious.

(source)

 I suspect that LEGO is doing this same trick once again.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Follows Closely

[Overcold]

A agree that this teaser is likely for the next modular building (albeit modified in the facade and interior as FollowsClosely mentioned). And to further extrapolate on this teaser, I am confident the next modular building is Shopping Street for a few reasons.

The sidewalk details, flower baskets, fire hydrant, flower bike, etc. are very well designed and in-line with what we expect to see in a modular. It's unlikely that they were designed for a one-off wholesome Facebook post. Given the confirmed larger scale of this set piece count wise, we have more clues as to what is going on here. There is likely at least one other building/shop to pair with the flower shop, which leads me to believe this is a reincarnation of what Anderson referred to as Shopping Street, which was replaced with the Jazz club during development. In an interview he mentioned: "When I first started doing some sketches for it, we were exploring things like a shopping street, where the layout might have been completely different with an aisle down the middle." 

He also said that they had a hard time fitting in in the scale and budget (particularly the width/scale of the buildings in such a small space) The budget has been increased for this year allowing the idea to be realized. It fits into the rumor that the building will be wider too. In a recent interview with Brickarchitect, Jamie Berard confirms that larger footprints are on the table, saying "We just want to use them strategically when there’s that extra special story that just warrants a bigger footprint or a smaller footprint." To me this sounds like the idea of Shopping Street struck a chord with the design team and was greenlit to fulfill Anderson's vision. Anderson Ward Grubb is a prolific designer, and his green thumb is seen in sets like 10280 Flower Bouquet which could explain the inclusion of the wonderful flowers and connect the idea to Shopping street. Maybe it's all just a coincidence but it makes a whole lot of sense to me.

As for the rumor of it being an inverted corner... it's possible. Perhaps it has 3 connection points to allow for a street or inverted corner or street if you so choose. I personally think it's likely but there isn't as much evidence to say for certain.Only that the info came bundled with the rumor that it was larger (which turned out to be true. 4,000 pieces! ).

 

Spoiler

Looking back...  it turns out that I was wrong. I read a little too much into things as usual, though it was a fun train of thought while it lasted.

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Overcold

[Lyichir]

Well, mark me as one who is wholly convinced that that video is NOT any sort of hint about the next modular building. Pretty much all aspects of the build are lifted wholecloth from other sets—several of the plants are lifted directly from the Friends Botanical Garden, for instance. My guess is that this video was made by an external partner with no insight into upcoming sets.

[Toast]

I feel as if I'm the only one hoping that this teaser isn't the new modular. It looks too similar to AS and I much rather something for our city that hasn't been done before like a hospital or museum. But to be honest no matter what it is or looks like I'll be buying it with the modular GWP come February.

Also, speaking of two modulars a year, it's always been a dream of mine for them to release a large skyscraper modular every year or two in the summer to add some height to my city but the Marvel modulars have helped with that and I hope an IP modular is a trend that stays so that I can get a building twice a year, but not feel as if I need to break the bank to collect them all.

[Hippocampe]

You’re not the only one ! It seems to me that it is too close with elements we’ve already had in the past : flower shop, yellow awnings; why not go with a big building with city services: school, hospital, etc Any city needs those elements that are overdue for too long 

[BrickFit26]

@OvercoldI remember those interviews too. They really tried for like a shopping street with shops down the middle, but it was just too small and not workable with a 32x32 plate.

[hikouki]

Market Street? 

[jus1973]

We had a florists in Assembly square, so another one seems a little repetitive. I know there are a couple of restaurants but they’re quite distinctive in both architecture and also food style. There are loads of other shops etc they could do on a ‘shopping street’ before repeating the same again. Hardware, records, clothes, to name a few. 

[Hippocampe]

I was rather taken by surprise when I read the last rumour - which is now considered to be the real thing  - that the next modular would contain over 4000 pieces, for no particular reason (no anniversary to commemorate, etc); then I thought of all the sets that I’ve built in the past, for example the GE. I love shopping in real life and I would have been pleased at the time if the store had been at least twice that size. Many people have bought two sets to make a bigger one with success but you know, having one big ensemble with all the new exclusive colors and all the bells and whistles of new pieces and new construction techniques in a single box is more appealing to me, since I don’t consider myself to be a great designer to modify and adapt many sets together. Maybe at that time in 2010, the rise in price would have been too steep for a « all-included-double-set » for many since the collection was still new. For Star Wars collection for example, fans are already addicted from the movies, so enlarged Millenium Falcons one after another is no big deal, they will sell ! Same the with the Ninjago theme: how gigantic is that City Market ! But back in 2010, the Modulars had yet to achieve their recognition. So now that we’re all hooked 😆it would be no surprise to me from now on that Modulars will slightly enlarge, even with non-anniversary sets. Then I hope that from time to time, TLG will dare again to do some buildings with only one function (hospital, school, multimedia center, bus/train station, etc). 

[Lion King]

As we don’t have too much info regarding the next modular building other than the amount of pieces, I would love to see some more people with disabilities in this building set, such as a person in wheelchair and accessible ramp or with guiding cane. We have the bassist from Jazz Club that wears a hearing aid, which it implies he is hard-of-hearing, which it’s awesome. 

Of course, we can add the existing minifigures with disabilities to Modular Buildings Collection. 

[hikouki]

6 hours ago, Lion King said:

As we don’t have too much info regarding the next modular building other than the amount of pieces, I would love to see some more people with disabilities in this building set, such as a person in wheelchair and accessible ramp or with guiding cane. We have the bassist from Jazz Club that wears a hearing aid, which it implies he is hard-of-hearing, which it’s awesome. 

Of course, we can add the existing minifigures with disabilities to Modular Buildings Collection. 

I think a school, stadium, market, hospital or theater would be candidates for something that has plenty of those, only because these types of buildings would normally attract people of great diversity. Stadium and theater on the other hand would probably not have as much opportunity for story-telling as the other scenarios.

[Lion King]

I had a strangely interesting dream last night. In my drea, I saw a new modular buidling  with new streetlmaps - new color (black) and new molded piece in place of trans-clear minifigure head. And i think I saw there was a new detail for sidewalk, such as a black guardrail (I don’t know what it’s called exactly) and i loved that modular building. - it had  a shop and cafe with cool architectural facade (I can’t remember what period it is from…). Oh and that buidling ws a corner type. 

Of course, it was just a dream after awakening but sometimes dreams can come true. 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Lion King