Esben Kolind

Hi all, Thank you for the comments, I am really happy that you like the model. Anio asked for some more images of the different techniques, so I have included some pictures I took during the building and design process. The green circle in the center is made from 24 identical pieces attached on hinge plates kept in position by clips/bars/"erling" via the octagonal plate i the centre. The cells and the micro LED wire used for the lights. Simply attached to the underside of the ceiling by 1x2 plates. SNOT bricks in every cell to hold the brown 2x4 tiles. Since everything is "off grid" due to the use of the train tracks at the bottom, it is necessary to connect the columns for every second floor using flex tubes for stability reasons. This picture also shows how every second column is 4 studs wide all the way through, while every second column narrows to 3 studs on the inside using lots of jumper plates. The cubes on the inside do not follow the curvature of the columns, but are attached using bars and "erling" to get the right spacing. The last picture shows how the building is built in 5 heavy blocks and the elevator sections in between are free standing (and somewhat fragile) Esben

Tietgenkollegiet (English: Tietgen Student Hall) is a student residence located in the Ørestad district of Copenhagen, Denmark. Completed in 2006, it was designed by Danish architects Lundgaard & Tranberg and features 360 rooms in a circular shape. My LEGO version of Tietgenkollegiet is 106 x 106 studs in size. It was on display in the shop window of the BR toy store on the main pedestrian street in Copenhagen for two months over Christmas 2024. Additional images can be found in very high resolution in this Flickr folder. Pictures from the building process can be seen on my Instagram account. The location of the building on Google Maps and angled aerial photos can be seen here. The below image is taken directly above the model and shows the perfect circular structure, with the common areas protruding like cubes in the inner yard of the complex. Experimenting with the light sources during the photo session yielded this "sunset" picture with clear shadows. It gives a realistic feel to the model. The building has about 400 micro LED lights attached to the ceiling of all floors, both in the apartments on the outside and the corridors on the inside. A detailed view through the elevator columns to the inner yard. The house numbers are custom printed on profile bricks. The common areas on the inside of the building The building is constructed on a standard LEGO train track circle on four 48x48 baseplates. The diameter of the track circle, the 64 different "directions" combined with a floor height of ten plates (a 1x2x3 window + 1 plate for the floor) turned out to match the true proportions almost exactly. I found some of the architectural drawings online, and they were a big help during the design phase. Finally some reference pictures: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the model and the post and I welcome any comments. Best regards, Esben

Hi all, My latest model is the country house "Knudsholm" in Jutland, Denmark. It is built on commission as a present for the owner of the house who turned 80 years old, has lived in the house his entire life and will soon be moving out. The model is based on several pictures of the house as well as aerial photos found online- All pictures can be found in this Flickr album. A few reference pictures of the real building: I hope you like it. All comments are welcome. Esben

Hi all, My latest MOC is an Architecture style version of the National Gallery of Denmark (Danish: Statens Museum for Kunst - SMK) in central Copenhagen. The building was completed in 1896 and is inspired by Italian renaissance. The modern building on the back was added in 1998. More pictures can be found in this Flickr folder Read more about the building process and see reference pictures below the model images. And please leave a comment if you like the model The corner slopes in sand green have been in my collection since 21017 Imperial Hotel and I have known for some time that I wanted to use them for this model. This brick would define the scale of the entire building together with the 1 x 6 x 2 arch chosen for the arch above the main entrance. Multiple colors (Medium Nougat, Tan, Dark Tan and Light Grey have been used to mimic the weathered look of the facade. Esben

Thank you for all the nice comments. Unfortunately, there is no interior in the building, only some plants, lamps and curtains behind the windows so it doesn't look empty. Esben

Hi all, I present to you my model of Holckenhus, a building from 1893 in central Copenhagen, Denmark. As I have biked past it many times and really like the style, I have been wanting to build it in LEGO bricks for some time. There is a reference picture at the bottom of the post and more pictures can be found in the Flickr Album Do you like it? All comments are welcome. Esben

Thank you, Johnny. As for the graph paper, I think I downloaded it somewhere on LEGO's website. But a quick google search found this website https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/asymmetric/ where you can generate your own graph paper to the exact measures you want.

The Mountain is a residential building in Ørestad, a modern neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (BIG) My model is 96 x 80 studs and built in scale 1:150 based on the actual drawings supplied by the architect. It was built for the exhibition "Formgiving" in Danish Architecture Center showcasing the work of Bjarke Ingels. While the front of the building is a sloped and angled layer of apartments and terraces, the back of the building features a large image of Mount Everest hiding the parking garage inside. Each floor has a distinct color code only visible from the back. This photo shows the regular structure and symmetry of the building. Each floor is 7 plates high. Seen directly from the top, the 45 degrees angles are very visible. The different apartment levels are accessed by a "tilted" elevator between the parking garage and the apartments. This can be seen in the picture below. A picture of The Mountain in the sunset More pictures in very high resolution can be found in this Flickr album. The building process has been documented on the blog bigbuilders.dk where other LEGO models from the Formgiving exhibition are also presented. In the blog posts below you can read about initial design considerations, selection of scale and color, building a mosaic of Mount Everest and see reference pictures of the building. I have included some teaser pictures. Getting started - initial design The parking garage Starting from the bottom Half way up the hill Preparing to build Mount Everest Reaching the summit The final model All comments are welcome. Esben Instagram Flickr

Hi all, My latest MOC is a model of my own townhouse in the Islands Brygge district of Copenhagen, Denmark. If you are interested, you can see the reference here: Google StreetView The minifigs represent all the neighbors doing what they love the most My LEGO room is behind the window with the yellow wine glass, which is in fact the LEGO Masters trophy I won in the Christmas and New Year's edition of the Danish LEGO Masters. I hope you like the model. More on Flickr and my Instagram. Esben

Hi all, My latest model is an architecture scale (1:225) version of 79&PARK, an apartment building currently under construction in Stockholm. The building is designed by architects Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the architects behind LEGO House in Billund. The model is currently displayed in LEGO House as part of an exhibition of 10 different BIG buildings created by AFOLs around the world in the BIG Builders project. A series of blog posts describing the early sketching, design choices, building techniques, lighting and photography of the model can be found on the project blog. All pictures have been taken in a professional studio and can be seen in this Flickr album. I have edited a short presentation video showing the model pictures alongside the visualizations of the actual building. The 360 degree visualization at the end of the video can also be found on this link (click the image to see the model rotate). I cannot find a way to embed this in this post (?) The model features light from BrickStuff.com, see the project blog for more details. This shot imitates a sunset with long shadows The pixel pattern is very visible from this shot taken directly from above The inner garden is best seen from this angle Two views of the backside of the building I am quite pleased with the final outcome of this model. I would love to hear your comments. Thanks. Esben

It is now on display in their living room but I think (and hope) that they will play with it every once in a while. And my friend promised to update the model if they make changes to the house or plants :-) thanks for the comments, everyone. Esben

My friend asked if I could build a LEGO model of his home. Or even better, if I could design it and his son could construct it. Challenge accepted. He lives in a traditional townhouse from the 50ies in a surburb of Copenhagen. His family only lives in half of the building and since the other half is identical, I decided to only design half the building and then use a mirror when displaying the model. This also gives easy access to the interior. I also designed minifig versions of the family The house has full interior, but except for the kitchen, I left it for my friend and his son to design the furniture I completed the model and then took apart the walls and parts of the roof, terrace and paths for the son to build. Building it all from scratch would have been too complicated and time consuming for him. A few pictures of the house All pictures can be found in this Flickr album A fun little build which turned out quite well. And the receiver was very happy! I would love to hear your comments. Esben

Thank you. Yes, I think making a prototype of a facade or cross section really helps to showcase the idea and also decide on colors, techniques etc. LEGO is such an obvious material for architectural models... and they can easily be changed. While we build Pier E, we have built another interim, grim walkway to Go :-) It can be seen on the aerial photo. Thanks. I proposed the idea, built the prototypes and the project manager accepted. I built it on my own over the course of a month when I was on paternity leave (maximum two hours per day when the little one had her long nap). I hope the model will eventually be displayed in the new pier as part of the communication campaign.

Background Copenhagen Airport is currently constructing a new Pier E connecting Pier D with the low-cost Pier F, replacing the existing, narrow covered walkway. The first phase of the building is planned to open in 2019 with 22.000 m2 floor space including seven new gates at a price of 850 mill. DKK (115 mill. Euro). The ground level contains bus gates while level 1 has pier serviced gates and border control facilities. Level 2 contains flow corridors for arriving and transferring passengers. Working in the operational analysis department in the airport, I have been involved in the project since the early design stages in 2014. When the early concepts for the pier were sketched, I suggested building a LEGO scale model of the pier instead of at traditional styrofoam or cardboard architectural model. This would enable us to show the interior layout and various passenger flows and would create more attention and awareness of the project internally in the organization. Early prototypes To illustrate the idea, I initially built a short section of the pier in the scale 1 stud = 2 m where the different levels and the roof could be removed. At this scale, it was not possible to build interior such as staircases, chairs and desks. The next prototype was built in the scale 1 stud = 1 m and I experimented with different colors for the floors as well as color coded passenger flows (blue and yellow lines on the picture below). Based on this second prototype, it was decided to go ahead and build a LEGO model of the full pier. Design The model was designed based on available drawings using pen and checkered paper. For the two bends in the building, I experimented with various wedge plates before arriving at angles very close to the actual bends. As no details on the design and colors of the facades and roof were available, the exterior of the LEGO model was designed using simple white bricks and glass. Brown was chosen to imitate a wooden floor, however, the idea of indicating passenger flows with colored lines in the floor was abandoned as it would ruin the overall visual appeal of the model. In contrast to the white building, the busses serving the pier were designed using the actual yellow color of the busses currently operating in the airport. At the selected scale, the seating (using simple panels) appears a little too deep (1 meter) and the columns are too wide (1 meter). These are the main design compromises I had to make at this scale. The planned with of the pier is 40 meters (40 studs) so the model was built on 48 x 48 studs baseplates. Surrounding apron and roads was built on 32 x 32 studs baseplates. The roof, level 2 flow corridors and the entire level 1 can be removed to access the interior of the ground floor. The model was built in May 2015. A work in progress photo is seen below. Presentation The model was presented to the top management of Copenhagen Airport in an information workshop on the project before the final decision to initiate the project. Since then, the model has been on display in the airport headquarters. Pictures All pictures can be found in this Flickr album: The detailed plans to build a new Pier E were revealed to the public in early 2017 and the construction commenced shortly after. Apart from the detailing of the facade, only minor changes to internal flow corridors have been made since the construction of the LEGO model. An additional level 3 for technical installations has also been added. Pictures below show the contruction site and visualizations. Read about the project: http://www.passengerterminaltoday.com/viewnews.php?NewsID=83385 I look forward to hear all comments on this model that I have been waiting for a long time to present publicly. Esben

Hi, This model of a modern Finnish wooden house was built on commision as a birthday present for the owner of the house, located in the woods in Finland. The model was built in "half-minifig scale" (doors are two studs wide) in a LEGO Architecture-like style to reduce cost and complexity, as the birthday boy was to receive the model as a lego set and build it himself. All pictures on Flickr The model was re-designed over several iterations to simplify the build. Finally, the model was carefully taken a part, taking pictures of each step and corresponding bricks in the process. The pictures would go in to a photo book to provide instructions for the model. All bricks were divided into bags corresponding to the different steps in the instructions (foundations, walls, roofs etc.) Several pictures from all angles as well as original architectural drawings were used for the design process. What do you think of it? All comments are welcome. Esben