Seven Dials is a small area of London, squeezed in between the city’s theatre district and the nightlife of Soho. It’s one of the cool parts of town, narrow streets stuffed full of quirky shops and art galleries. One of these galleries is playing temporary host to a new LEGO launch — the Limited Edition large-scale wooden minifigure, the first release in the new LEGO Originals line, and we attended the gallery’s opening this morning. We also had a chance to sit down with the project’s design director for an interview. Fans were invited to register for a timeslot to visit the gallery through the LEGO VIP loyalty programme, and the first session was booked up almost immediately. Although guaranteed admission, these first visitors still arrived early, and there was a good-sized queue well in advance of the official opening time. A further “standby queue” had also formed — people hoping...

The Millennium Falcon is one of the most iconic ships in Star Wars, and perhaps all science fiction. It’s so familiar that it’s been made into quite a few official LEGO sets as well as countless fan creations. Interestingly, despite the numerous recreations, there’s still room for new design ideas, such as Tim Goddard’s latest 1/72 scale version. Built at this scale to fit in with some of his other Star Wars ships, this model is full of interesting design features. A very noticeable aspect of the build is the sheer variety of pieces used. This is evident in the shaping of the overall shape of the ship, as well as in the details, like the cockpit. And that’s not even mentioning the greebles that emphasize the pieced togetherness of the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy. The smartest design choice though, has to be the colours. Not content with the same...

There are several ways to relieve stress; meditation, good diet, adjusting your jazz intake from acid to smooth. Or you can take a gander at Sarah Beyer’s Artsand House and imagine yourself relaxing among the many verandas and green spaces. See, don’t you feel better already? Sarah tells us that to engage in this house is to flirt with Brutalism. (We’ve all been there, right?) All kidding aside, her meaning has nothing to do with batting eyelashes at someone who might be a toxic thug. Brutalism, in architectural terms, is a style of building that emerged in the 1950s and is characterized by imposing monolithic concrete slabs and rigid, often cold geometry. This style works effectively with courthouses, police stations, town halls, prisons, often big municipal buildings of importance but rarely do we state that Brutalism can describe a relaxing and lovely home. But in Sarah’s hands, this is the case....

Q: Should we look at price to weight ratios for LEGO sets instead of price to part?A: No. No we should not.In terms of production costs, the price of the raw ABS that goes into each set is minuscule.  In a quick search as a consumer, not even having access to true high-volume industrial pricing, the price of ABS looked to be around $1/lb. in moderate bulk and I'm sure with the outrageous quantities LEGO deals with, they get a significantly better deal than that. The $800 USD UCS Millennium Falcon thus contains less than $25 worth of plastic.The smaller LEGO pieces are, the more they weigh for a given volume of completed set; 8x 1x1 bricks weigh more than a single 2x4 brick that takes up the same space, and 3x 1x1 plates weigh more than a 1x1 brick. In other words weight and what I simply call "volume of stuff," the...

Today marked the public release of the second LEGO Ultimate Collector Series Imperial Star Destroyer, the hollow, but beautiful 4,784 piece behemoth.  If you have any interest in it whatsoever, you've surely already been soaked in news announcements and "analyses" in addition to full-fledged (and fully positive) reviews since LEGO shipped pallets of them out for free to generate praise.  As much as I used to wish I had the original mega-model from 2002, I won't be buying the new one.  At $700 USD, it costs too much and more importantly, at over 2 feet wide and 3.5 feet long, it's too dang big.  I do rather like it, though...Read more »Original linkOriginal author: theJANG