Brickwares Custom Art

December 18, 2015 N3 Posted In: Featured Articles, Splash

The Building of the N3 Condo Model by Dave Ware, Brickwares and Robin Sather, Brickville Designworks in Calgary 2015.

In 2014, I received a call from a Calgary builder who was interested in producing a scale model of a new condominium building they were planning. After a meeting or two, it became apparent that the project was going to be sizeable, and so I partnered up with Robin Sather of Brickville Deisgnworks. Robin has been a great friend and business mentor over the years, and this project was a great chance for us to work together. The plan was to create a model of the building (called N3) as well as the St. Louis Hotel, a Calgary landmark (which is located next to the condo site).

N3 Concept

St Louis Actual

We set to work, Robin doing most of the planning and scoping, while I built small concept models of window sets and doorways, so we could see the plan in action (Rapid Prototyping in action!).

St Louis Sample Early

After a lot more planning, and a few setbacks due to planning commission approvals (for the real building), we were ready to start building. In late June of 2015, we set up in a three car garage just outside of Calgary, brought in about 2 pallets of Lego, 5 tables, and we were ready to start.

St Louis Build Early

N3 Early

N3 birds eye

After sorting out all the minor build issues, we had a floor of N3 ready, and then proceeded to build a lot more of them (15 in total).

N3 First Floor

N3 First Segment

First Segment

By the end of the summer, we had 5 “modules” of N3, as well as the St. Louis ready to transport to the showcase center. The video below covers a lot of that phase.

Finally finished, after about 700 man hours, 3 months, over 200,000 Lego bricks, and a build team of Robin, myself, Hayley, Winston, Eric and countless others, we were done!

photo by Pixels and Photons

photo by Pixels and Photons

Photo by Pixels and Photons

Photo by Pixels and Photons

Photo by Pixels and Photons

Photo by Pixels and Photons


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