Maps & Networks - Lego?

Thoughts 

I need a purpose to use lego. I suppose my purpose for wanting to use craft materials was convenience. Thinking about the concept of my idea (celebrating technology) I need to figure out if Lego is a better material for the concept and design and projection than craft materials. 

A bit about Lego

Ole Kirk Christiansen in billund 1932 carpenter

Went out of business and started making toys out of wood

1934

Lego in Latin is "I put together"

1942 fire in workshop

1964 plastic moulding machine
Godfrey son helped out with sales

1954 first commercial Lego set for building houses

Lego didn't stick together and fell apart when moving so tubes were built under the brick

1962 bigger production company global shipping built own airport

1968 Legoland opening

600,000 guest the first year

Lego has been a part of the world since the 1950s and a very prolific part of peoples childhood's and therefore creates a sense of familiarity and connectedness which we all share as young lego builders. 

Lego Architecture - London Skyline 

£40 new

Cheapest I've found is in Fleet for £20  

Thank god Facebook Marketplace has EVERYTHING 
though I do not have £20 for this in my budget 

I'd have to factor in spray painting it too which would cost about £6 for a can of matt white paint 

Pro's 

- I'm not having to worry about creating and designing it myself

- It's created and packaged by technology

- Craft materials could be more expensive to buy everything to a specific standard

Con's 

- Expensive 

- It appears to be very small and could potentially not show all of my animation to its full potential

- The concept is to celebrate technology and the buildings which are included are too historical and not a true celebration of the amazing buildings which now stand tall in Londons Skyline

This has made me consider the buildings which would be worth creating such as the Gherkin, The Walkie Talkie building, the London eye. 

I've collected some images of London's skyline for inspiration:

Lego experiments 

I have started to create a lego skyline, I propose to replicate the Shard, maybe the Gherkin, The Leadenhall Building, CityPoint and the Principal Tower. 

I managed to bribe my dad to drag out mine and my sisters old lego from the garage and broke up all of her old models which was "a sharp lego brick to my infant heart" if I quote Charley. 

After breaking it all down into single pieces we started thinking about what we could achieve with the random pieces of lego that we had. I found some panels and angled bends which allowed me to create The Leadenhall Building, roughly. While I was building the Principle Tower, Charley was finding bricks for me in the pile and trying to create the hardest building, The Gherkin. 

We got to this point. We also had ran out of important large building blocks which makes the foundations of the buildings. Charley's efforts of a Gherkin replica were minimal and unmotivated at this point too. I started on the CityPoint building. 

After getting to this stage I realised that I was not going to achieve the detail and scale of which I wanted for my sculpture. The concept of using lego is fantastic for celebrating technology however there are more cons than pros at this stage. If I manage to get some lego through the company itself perhaps I could continue. 

I would like to still attempt to project onto this format as it will be interesting to see the outcome and could save time in the future if I manage to get my sponsor. 

Lego Projection Mapping

It was really challenging to be able to get the right shape to map onto my buildings and the outcome I didn't like so much. The many colours of the bricks also made it harder to see the animation. I think that the size of the lego buildings is an issue too as I want them to be quite large to show the details of the animation. As a decision I think I would like to just leave this idea of using lego as an experiment. I have realised that the scale of the buildings is going to have to be much wider and taller.