It’s been a while since my last ‘real project’, not counting the update to the dino calendar. One of the reasons is that I am working on a slightly larger project: The – tadaa – Micro City. Micro city is a collection of models of buildings, vehicles and infrastructure that are at a small scale, so that a whole city will fit on your desk. I kept the models as simple as possible, most being simple blocks, so that despite their scale, they are easy to build. And it’s actually quite satisfying making them – I think it’s exactly the right balance between trivial and difficult.
Here, using a box of matches, you can see the scale:
So, the buildings are really small, which also has the nice effect that I can add larger buildings at roughly the right scale. The train station in the background, for instance, is about as big as a (small) train station would be, relative to the blue tram.
If you happen to have any Lego® blocks lying around, the building templates are scaled to match the dimensions of these, so you can use them as weights. This gives the paper buildings a heavier, nicer feel, and they are not as easily toppled as paper toys tend to be. Here is how using Lego® blocks as weights works:
And for the arch:
Of course you don’t have to use Lego® blocks, you can either leave the buildings empty or add something else as weight (but make sure it fits and doesn’t rattle around). But some of you may have a collection of old, basic blocks (you shouldn’t use the fancy, detailed stuff they provide these days), you may want to use them. Just keep in mind that the blocks may be tied up in the buildings for quite some time, and don’t forget to reclaim them should you at some point (hopefully after playing with them for a long, long time) discard the buildings.
And remember to check back every so often, as I intend to expand the collection of buildings and vehicles over time. One good way to get notified is to register for my newsletter.
Here is the PDF file:
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