These are LEGO idea books, that require you to have a pretty good collection of LEGO bricks, or willingness to buy some, if you want to follow the builds closely. But what you really want to do is to use the build instructions to guide your thinking about what is possible, likely, or difficult, and how to approach the overall problem of building a small village right now that you can put under your holiday tree next week. Most of the creative energy in these books is in display of galleries of great builds photographed very nicely.

The books are sensitive to architectural style (Ameroican Colonial, Art Ceco, etc.) and how they might be combined to make a realistic urban landscape. The second volume has a section on microcities, where you build at the smallest possible scale.

Brian Lyles is a professional videographer who runs Brick City Depot, an online repository of over 50 detailed LEGO building instructions. When not running Brick City Depot with his brother Brian, Jason Lyles works as a software developer. The brothers live in Richmond, VA.

Most of the LEGO books I’ve seen are pure idea books. If you wanted to build a project based on what you see in the books, you have to either have a huge collection of LEGO parts very well organized, or you have to be prepared to order several specific bricks that are called for in the books.

But that is the wrong way to play with LEGOs. The books demonstrate concepts, give you ideas, guide you to become a better LEGOer.

Very few LEGO books that I’ve seen are clearly this, clearly about methods and techniques, as The LEGO Architecture Idea Book: 1001 Ideas for Brickwork, Siding, Windows, Columns, Roofing, and Much, Much More by Alice Finch.

How does this work? Let me give you an example. Say you want to build a building with nice columns. There are many different kinds of columns out there in architecture land, and you can imagine that there are different ways to build each one, and which method you use depends, in turn, on the scale you are working on. Say you want to build columns that would go with a building that would work well with the assumption that the building will be used by minifigs (the small LEGO people that come with many kits). Finch gives you sixteen pages of ideas for columns, starting out with these two:

Or maybe you are in need of some curved walls:

Or stained glass:

Or towers:

You get the point.

LEGOs are bricks, and bricks are used to build buildings, and The LEGO Architecture Idea Book: 1001 Ideas for Brickwork, Siding, Windows, Columns, Roofing, and Much, Much More is a really helpful guide to developing the methods and techniques for doing that.

The wizzard behind the book, Alice Finch, is one of the top LEGO builders in the world, famous for her extensive renditions of Harry Potter’s world and other major projects (see below). This is a great book for the aspiring LEGO builder, and an excellent choice as a holiday gift for your LEGO-loving offspring.