All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Why can't we create big brick sized thick strong lego blocks and build houses out of them?
LEGO
- Thread starter All Seeing Eye
- Start date
There are, well almost. They're made of wood and they're more like planks than bricks.
However I suspect the main reason is either due to lack of raw materials for mass-production, difficulty in manufacturing them large-scale or simply because they're far too expensive.
So yeah, one of those three reasons.
However I suspect the main reason is either due to lack of raw materials for mass-production, difficulty in manufacturing them large-scale or simply because they're far too expensive.
So yeah, one of those three reasons.
Toss some Legos in a fire and stand back as the intense heat of burning/melting plastic melts your face off. Even if you make it fireproof the intense heat would melt the plastic into a sticky goo. You could never get out of a melting goo house and firemen couldnt get in to save you. Years of sunlight exposure would break down even the best UV deterents and then your house would start to flake away. No insulation value in plastic blocks. Plastic is easily damaged and scratched making repairs a problem. And the list goes on.......
I gather the question was more about the shape of the things, not the material.
Today's stone houses are typically built of "stone" blocks a foot or two per side, cast in shape out of concrete-type materials, sometimes with insulation preinstalled inside the blocks. But they don't have the classic locking mechanism of knobs and holes. And there's a pretty good reason for that: the walls of a house require support against sideways forces/bending, not just compression. A locking mechanism every twenty-thirty centimeters just doesn't cut it - there have to be bracing irons all the way from the bottom to the top of the wall.
Which isn't that great a modification to the concept of LEGO brick houses, really. Ordinary clay bricks aren't that different from LEGO ones in the end: it's the toy that got the inspiration from the building material, not vice versa...
Timo Saloniemi
Today's stone houses are typically built of "stone" blocks a foot or two per side, cast in shape out of concrete-type materials, sometimes with insulation preinstalled inside the blocks. But they don't have the classic locking mechanism of knobs and holes. And there's a pretty good reason for that: the walls of a house require support against sideways forces/bending, not just compression. A locking mechanism every twenty-thirty centimeters just doesn't cut it - there have to be bracing irons all the way from the bottom to the top of the wall.
Which isn't that great a modification to the concept of LEGO brick houses, really. Ordinary clay bricks aren't that different from LEGO ones in the end: it's the toy that got the inspiration from the building material, not vice versa...
Timo Saloniemi
I assumed the reason would be to do with resources.
You build about half the house, then before you can put the roof on, you've got yellow and blue pieces, and you'll be buggered if you can find a piece with just one nobble on top to put in the corner, so you end up using a wheel instead.
Having said that, I'm sure I read an article not so long ago saying that they were trialling "flatpack" houses, made out of cardboard, in London some time in the last year or two. Kinda the same principal as Lego, with the added bonus of being environmentally friendly. And turning to mush on you the first time it rains
You build about half the house, then before you can put the roof on, you've got yellow and blue pieces, and you'll be buggered if you can find a piece with just one nobble on top to put in the corner, so you end up using a wheel instead.
Having said that, I'm sure I read an article not so long ago saying that they were trialling "flatpack" houses, made out of cardboard, in London some time in the last year or two. Kinda the same principal as Lego, with the added bonus of being environmentally friendly. And turning to mush on you the first time it rains
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Ok when building a house how about erecting 4 steel girders in 4 corners creating a square formation and then making four large square walls completely from concrete and then sliding those concrete walls into slots on the girders, then each corner can be filled in using mortar.
Saves all the messing about laying bricks.
Saves all the messing about laying bricks.
Which is why so many houses today are built exactly like that. There are even prefabricated concrete elements that have tiles glued to the outer surface so that they look nice.
However, the economics of this aren't on the side of fabricating "standard" walls, the way the LEGO bricks are standard. It's cheaper to fabricate just the type of wall element that a particular house needs, right when the house needs it.
Timo Saloniemi
However, the economics of this aren't on the side of fabricating "standard" walls, the way the LEGO bricks are standard. It's cheaper to fabricate just the type of wall element that a particular house needs, right when the house needs it.
Timo Saloniemi
Edison had a concrete house idea in 1906
http://flyingmoose.org/truthfic/edison.htm
http://flyingmoose.org/truthfic/edison.htm
As long as you remember insulation, you're talking a house that could even possibly survive a sideswipe by a tornado.
My grandfather designed their house from layers of cinderblock mortared together. One thing he forgot was insulation, but the house actually did come through a sidedswipe by a tornado undamaged.
My grandfather designed their house from layers of cinderblock mortared together. One thing he forgot was insulation, but the house actually did come through a sidedswipe by a tornado undamaged.
Were you not aware that most modern, common plastics are petroleum based?
It's not just LEGO, the price of plastic toys in general is impacted by the price of oil.
They have experimented building houses out of cardboard. I'm serious.
Recycled paper waste is mixed with glue and squashed into interlocking lego bricks (the prongs are fewer and deeper in the version I saw). These are cheap and strong enough and water proof enough for general housing construction in 3rd world countries. Build time is very fast too because the bricks are ligher weight and there's no messing around with cement; they just stack together.
And if they want to move home, they can pull these bricks apart and take their house with them
Yeah and the price of Oil is waaaay down and LEGO are still expensive, damm those Danes and their addictive Bricks.
If they are going to make prefab wall panels, they should be made out of several materials, kind of a composite type structure. Use Steel for strength, Plastic for sealing, Wood of Vinyl siding for the outside and Aerogel for insulation, also make them kinda like Cubicle walls int hat they have electrical hookups in them to easy wiring.
Don't force me to post pics of my LEGO creations
Well, looks like TV's Captain Slow is going to have a go:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8168892.stm
I'm sure they will get an adult to supervise for the more complicated models. Or if the whole plan fails, they can just take the bricks and make a huge starship, just like I used to do.
However, this quote caught my eye:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8168892.stm
I'm quite fascinated by this project, actually. Anyone here from Surrey wanting to help out there? (They're still looking for volunteers.)
I'm sure they will get an adult to supervise for the more complicated models. Or if the whole plan fails, they can just take the bricks and make a huge starship, just like I used to do.
However, this quote caught my eye:
[Insert "put a brick in your toilet" joke here]
Three Million Lego Bricks?
Man! The Mythbusters had a very hard time gathering a few thousand of them to do a Lego IJ:RotA rolling ball (inspired by a YouTube Video)! How did this group manage to gather millions of them to build a house?!
Man! The Mythbusters had a very hard time gathering a few thousand of them to do a Lego IJ:RotA rolling ball (inspired by a YouTube Video)! How did this group manage to gather millions of them to build a house?!
And they still don't believe three million will be enough. 
An average sized house in england has about 10000 house bricks.
A house brick would take over 100 normal sized lego bricks to replicate. So 1 million would seem right for walls.
If they're doing the roof and all the joists and flooring in lego too, you could double that figure. Interior furnishings, maybe another million. So 3 million sounds a reasonable estimate to me
I can't see it working though. The walls and roof will be good, but the floor joists will collapse under weight unless they glue the bricks together. I really can't see them getting it finished either. 3 million lego bricks is a lot of work even for 100 laborers doing 30000 lego bricks each. You work that effort out.
A house brick would take over 100 normal sized lego bricks to replicate. So 1 million would seem right for walls.
If they're doing the roof and all the joists and flooring in lego too, you could double that figure. Interior furnishings, maybe another million. So 3 million sounds a reasonable estimate to me
I can't see it working though. The walls and roof will be good, but the floor joists will collapse under weight unless they glue the bricks together. I really can't see them getting it finished either. 3 million lego bricks is a lot of work even for 100 laborers doing 30000 lego bricks each. You work that effort out.
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Either way, it would still be a better job AND be on time and within budget compared to some of the cowboys out there... 
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