In this post, I discuss how I went about setting the LEGO Ninjago City (70620) into my LEGO city.

Personally, I think the Ninjago City is one of the best buildings that LEGO has produced. While it is not an official LEGO modular building, I do consider it a modular building as it fits my LEGO city.

The building is extremely detailed and very tall. It takes up a standard 32 x 32 stud base plate but it is the tallest building that LEGO has been produced, even taller than the Town Hall (10224).

Architecturally, it is also very different from the typical European old-style modular building that LEGO has released so far. Setting it into a LEGO city can be challenging due to the heavy Asian-inspired look.

I used several techniques to set the city into my city seamlessly.

Location

One of the challenges of the Ninjago City is that it is designed such that it seems that a river is running through the city. This makes it difficult to set it in a city unless you can explain and give motivation to the city.

In my city, the front of the city is against a beach front or seaside. The Ninjago City is located in a place where it is imagined that water runs out to the sea in the front of the building.

I built a retaining wall around the back of the city to keep the water in. This turns the water into an internal water feature that flows out to the sea. This eliminates the need to have water flowing outside of the building (except from on side).

Offsetting Size & Height

This technique was used to ensure the height of the Ninjago City did not make it stick out like a sore thumb in the city.

My main city layout consists of two levels. The main street or back level is raised about one storey high across the display. This raised level is created by a custom-made riser made from plywood and finished in black laminate. This allows me to create an entire row of modular buildings on this higher level.

The Ninjago City is placed on the lower level so that it does not tower over most of the buildings in the display. Its extreme height is visually cut down by the higher level.

I also did not set the Ninjago City between two other standard modular buildings. Doing so, will make the Ninjago City stand out and dwarf the other two buildings. So, I set the Ninjago City adjacent to an open area; specifically, my town park square. This open space also helps to visually offset the height of the Ninjago City.

Fitting in with Other Buildings

I did set the Ninjago City next to another building and I chose the “Palace Cinema” as it is also an Asian-style building. The similarity in theme and style makes it like a logical fit with the Ninjago City. In the back story of my city, this block is bought by Chinese developers who invested in the area.

Visual Devices/ Connectors

The final technique to integrate the Ninjago City seamlessly into the brick city was with the use of visual devices or connectors.

Visual devices ensure your LEGO city does not just look like a collection of individual LEGO sets. These visual devices will help to organically connect your city so it feels like a living breathing city. These devices are one of the non-obvious reasons why some LEGO cities look better than others.

Examples of these visual devices include:

• Road plates or simulated road (painted surfaces, regular plates, cardboard with stickers etc)
• Sidewalks, foot paths and grass trails
• Bridges
• Stairs or steps
• A water front or river that flows through the city
• A common space such as a park, town square or street
• Train or monorail tracks
• A line of greenery such as scrubs, plants or trees
• Cable car or tram
• Beachfront
• Mountain ridge or rock formation

For the Ninjago City, I built a custom stone bridge to connect the higher level of the ground floor of the city to the slightly lower level of my town park square. I added an extra 2 x 32 plate of “water” (trans-blue tiles over black plates) to create space between the Ninjago City and the town park square.

I also built a retaining wall on the side that connects with the “Palace Cinema” as well as a set of steps that lead down to the pavement of the “Palace Cinema”.

Watch this video below:

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