The LEGO Neighborhood Book: Build Your Own LEGO Town!

by Brian Lyles, Jason Lyles

In The LEGO Neighborhood Book, you'll create buildings with real-world details like cornices and facades, and try your hand at interior design by filling your buildings with furniture and light fixtures. Then add the finishing touches to your models with plants, traffic lights, scaffolding, and park benches. Snap together a few houses, shops, and apartment buildings to create your own neighborhood!

Inside you'll find:
-Complete, step-by-step instructions for four multistory buildings
-Dozens of inspiring ideas to use in your own models
-Mini builds for a recliner, old-time lamp post, traffic light, and more
-A gallery of the authors' designs

For ages 10+

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Art, Childrens, Ebooks

204 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2014

Reviews

[Louis]

It's a book, right? Right? Non-fiction, right?

[Danielle Booey]

I really enjoyed this book. In fact I have checked it out multiple times from the library. I think it really helps you create more realistic and fun looking Lego models. There are lots of great techniques inside. Whether it is sidewalks, facades, ornamentation, building furniture, or building a module are easily understood and come with great pictures. There is even a link in the back to a parts list for one of the modules designed in the book.

Overall, I definitely recommend this book for fans of Lego that want to take their designs up a notch. I am eagerly awaiting my hold to come in on the sequel!

[Stephen]

Good resource

Lots of useful info and even complete build examples. I would recommend this for Annie Lego fan various ages all to adult.

[Ryan Morris]

3.5 Stars
An absolutely amazing book if you all the right pieces on hand to build the book's suggestions, but without them it serves as more of a "wow, that would be fun to build" kind of thing. The authors do give great suggestions for just looking around in the real world for ideas to bring into your own Lego World.

[Eric Mesa]

My brothers and I used to live building Lego cities so it was neat to see the standards for making cities that interface duty the newer models.

[Nicholas Carabillò]

if you like lego like me then this book is just the right one for you. this book contains information that can help you improve your lego master building skills a lot, this book includes small details that can help you decorate or add more furniture to your lego apartment or home. this book also gives you the instructions you need to build the furniture, the decorations or the building itself.

[Ingrid]

That's the book I always wanted. I want to recreate something more medieval, so that is not in the book, though ideas are. Same for animals and plants, but ideas are there. It's a great book, not only showing pictures of finished buildings, but actually explaining you how to get inspired and thinking outside the box.

[Jake Straub]

There are 4 builds in the book but 3 of them are the exact same but with different facades. There were some interesting mini builds, but I found the interiors lacking. Don't buy it, check it out from a library.

[Adam Sharman]

Awesome LEGO Modular book

Great MOC's, Great Modular builds, great advise and information. Nice explanations of how modular buildings work. Great book for anyone wanting to get into modular buildings or building their own LEGO city/world.

[Beth]

Great book for building a Lego neighborhood.

[Bryttany Smith]

The book was very helpful in breaking down the concepts and processes for building your own lego towns.

[Nick]

just for if you want to build

[Chad]

Guide to modular LEGO buildings, with tips and a huge variety of examples of building exteriors and interiors. Shows how to replicate real-world building features in LEGO.

[Aimee]

This would be good for anyone think of doing a city. A few parts lists and instructions for buildings, but no mention of mils plates.

[Amanda]

fun review with some useful instructions for building some furniture and buildings

[Heather]

How had I not heard of this before?!? Such amazing LEGO builds, including a few interesting furniture bits, with detailed instructions for everything on that cover and more!

[Christian Petrie]

For Christmas I had picked this book up for the kids. The reason was I was looking for something similar to the old Lego books of the 80's. With the sheer number of Lego pieces we have, I wanted something to help with the kid's imagination. This book fits the build.

Before you purchase it, this book is for kids over 10 (plus adults) and if you have access to a lot of bricks. This books helps in two ways. It shows how to take things you see around town and show how they would look built. This means for part of the book, there are no instructions.

That port is why it is for older kids. They will need patience to build them. In other parts they do give step by step instructions. The items you will build with it is similar to the Lego Creator series. They are mini fig scale, but do require a lot of bricks. Even with the number of bricks we have, I still had to buy some from bricklink.com in order to complete some of it.

In the end, if you are into Lego, and need some help with building, this is a good book. The instructions are clear, the write up about how to find inspiration as well is good. Just be careful, if you are borderline Lego addict, this will make you a full blown addict.

[Susan Paxton]

I don't personally believe that LEGO were ever exclusively for kids, but today modeling in LEGO is a fun hobby that can be enjoyed by all. The LEGO modular building sets made it official: LEGO is for adults too, and this book, written by a couple of men who have a website dedicated to the subject, is a great introduction for anyone who wants to model realistic buildings using LEGO modular building parts. There isn't a lot of text, but it's not necessary; the feature here are the pictures, diagrams, and plans. The first part of the book has plenty of suggestions for creating realistic architectural details using standard LEGO parts, then moves on to furniture and interior fittings. Finally, there are four fully illustrated and diagrammed builds that include all you'll need to build a corner drugstore and three different houses, block by block, exterior and fully furnished interior.

Even if you're not going to build any of the specific projects, The LEGO Neighborhood Book will provide plenty of inspiration and adaptable ideas that anyone who wants to model in LEGO will find useful. Fun and recommended!

[Andrew Niemann]

Okay, so this is not typical of the books I post as having read, but I really appreciate the authors efforts to provide a set of guides to help me add more buildings to the living room windowsill that has been overwhelmed by LEGO Main Street. Sadly, this book will most likely be the cause of my spending a few more dollars on the addictive little toys. What is very helpful in this book is that though there only a few plans, the author provides many ideas for accents whereby one building design can lead to many.

[Diz]

This is a good introduction to building realistic lego buildings. It shows some of the basics and how to draw inspiration from the real world. The last half of the book shows instructions for two lego buildings, so you can experience the techniques first hand before trying you own designs. The book is very text light, so it's quick to read, but on the downside it could be considered content light. There are lots of pictures, so it is fun to look at.

[Dina]

This is a great how-to book if you would like to create your own modular buildings, but don't know where to start. Lyles shows you a variety of elements done in different ways--from doorways to living room furniture. He also walks you through choosing a building to create yourself and figuring out how to assemble it in Lego. The book includes complete instructions for assembling 2 different buildings: a corner drugstore and a modular house (with a variety of possible exteriors). Very well done.

[C]

A very interesting book, particularly for a Lego beginner (though the block selection they use for some of the builds is pretty specialized and rare). If you're interested in the more "realistic" modular side of Lego building, this one might be for you.

It feels far too short, though. I wish there was more to it.

[Thomas]

I have this book on my kindle and it is full of amazing architecture ....made with LEGO! a greta ideas book for the lego adult who has spent their life around lego or the lego child who has just started their lego adventure but also great for everyone in between. You are guided through the book by the lego mini-figure author which is very entertaining.

[Angie]

Lots of great building ideas and lessons about architecture. It went back and worth between photos of building and the bricks you can use to make the same structure. Certainly not for the Lego novice. You would need from pretty specific specialty blocks for some of these.

[Joel]

Fantastic book of inspiration and how-to for LEGO fans and builders of all ages. Highly recommended.

[Matt]

Great book that outlines some of the best ways to make use of the "Cafe Corner" format. Definitely looking forward to using these techniques in my own building.

[Mary]

An excellent reference book about constructing Lego buildings -- not only homes, but commercial structures. There's plenty of information that will inspire both novice and experienced Lego fans.

[Jameson Yu]

this was a good read. i liked how they primed the user on techniques and led them to practical use. the example builds and how to tweak them was very helpful. it is a good reference.

[Scott]

Cute. Some nice instructions for some community buildings you might want to try.

[Patrick]

Some inspiring designs.