Itty City Blocks: Build Your Own 3D-Printed Physical SimCity

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Itty City Blocks: Build Your Own 3D-Printed Physical SimCity

15 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

itty city modular blocks

At a scale of 1/1,000, these beautiful little models bring famous buildings to life but can also be fitted into whole blocks or assembled to form micro-metropolises.

itty block plug play

itty modular block shapeways

itty model roadway ramps

Car fanatics got Micromachines, but architecture enthusiasts have few options for collecting their favorite models – sure, there are great LEGO architecture sets, but those are more about the building process than the aesthetic of the finished product.

itty nyc city block

itty city simcity block

itty model lit up

Available on Shapeways, IttyBlox features everything from stereotypical New York townhouses to world-renowned works of architecture, including a lovely rendition of the Guggenheim at a thousandth the size of the original. Illumination from below and different thicknesses of materials above combine to allow these neat buildings to light up at night as well.

itty bitty guggenheim museum

itty city block park

Parks, highways and on/off ramps are also available to provide connective tissue between the core structures – sidewalks and streets are effectively built into the base plate pieces.

itty blocks world cities

itty city model hand

Where the real fun comes in, though, is in mixing and matching – using a modular base plate, you can remix blocks to your liking, picking favorite structures from London, New York or anywhere else and seeing how they might work when set side by side on the same street.