The LEGO® City continues to be one of the LEGO Group’s most popular themes which offers a slice of real-life adventures with a fun twist. The most recent wave of LEGO City sets have moved away from focusing on vehicles to shine a light on buildings. These buildings have also expanded upon a modular design, allowing them to be configured in different ways and even combined with other sets, should you have the creative urge. The set I’m taking a look at today is a multi-level apartment building, combining different rooms and sections to create a modern-looking dwelling for LEGO City’s various residents. Here’s what the Apartment Building set has to offer.
Product Details
Set Name: Apartment Building | Set Number: 60365 | Pieces: 688 | Theme: LEGO City
RRP: £74.99/$94.99/84.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 6 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: Sheet x 1 | Minifigures: Residents x 6
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
The build of the Apartments is split across three different instruction booklets, with each focused on a different level of the building. The sections are mostly built on two different base plates which are either a 16×8 or 8×8 plate. The set also makes use of the new road plates, which are the same dimensions. This does give the building a fairly angular look but also helps give every section of the set the ability to be combined in different ways. In its standard configuration, the Apartment Building’s footprint is sort of L-shaped.
The ground floor is home to a convenience store and a smaller open section which houses the building’s recycling bins and bike storage. The shop section is the most detailed of all the rooms found in the Apartment Building and it even features a nod to a previous LEGO City set thanks to the in-store slushy machine.
The second floor features two 16×8 rooms, one is a kitchen and the other is a living room. Both rooms are filled with neat little details but the highlight of the entire set for me is the TV. This uses a 4×4 plate which is mostly flat apart from a row of 4 studs. This doubles as an excellent flat-screen TV and it even includes a Rocket Racer Easter Egg on the screen as an added bonus.
The Apartment Building is topped with two other rooms, one is another open 8×8 section which leads onto a ‘floating’ swimming pool. This is very compact and does droop ever so slightly, due to the connection method and weight of the pool. But it’s only slight. The conjoining 16×8 room is actually split into two rooms, with one featuring a simple bed and the other a small but more detailed bathroom.
Finally, the building is topped by four 8×8 plates. These offer a variety of different things, so the lowest is a grassy plate with two solar panels. Higher up is a sloped skylight section and next to this a rooftop terrace featuring a sunlounger and BBQ area. These sections and most of the rooms are fairly simple in their design but once they are all combined together, they create an interesting play area. I especially like all the simple little builds that add detail to some of the rooms.
The apartment block is home to six residents and offers the usual mix of characters associated with the LEGO City sets. Each one of the minifigures is unique to this set, although some of the parts used to create them have appeared in other sets. Four of the torsos are brand new and offer some fun designs, in particular, the 80s workout guy and the chap with the moustache’s shirt. The elderly lady makes use of a couple of new elements to create her mobility scooter. The red base and handle elements are new but have appeared in other sets in different colours.
Overall
The modular-style building offers a different build experience. As it’s built in sections it feels like a smaller set than it eventually becomes. This has its advantages as well as downsides. As it’s built in sections, it’s a set which can built by multiple people at the same time. It also instils a level of self-creativity as you can configure the building in multiple ways. Other LEGO City sets have a similar design, so it’s entirely possible to combine different sets to create unique buildings. Obviously, the sets are aimed at kids but this unique modular configuration of the buildings could allow city-building AFOLs to kit their own LEGO worlds out with some interesting creations. The only downside of the set is the lack of even a single animal figure. These have been appearing in LEGO City sets more and more, so it’s a shame not even one is found in this set.
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The LEGO Group provided this set for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
