Navatown

HISTORY OF NAVATOWN

Keeping it short, back in around 2005 I had some space in the storage room above my house and we started building a traditional Lego city there with my two sons. It was about 8 by 2 meters and divided lengthwise by an aisle. The Lego Group introduced their modular building line-up aimed at adults in 2008 and I started using them along with my custom buildings for occupying the other side of the room. And the custom buildings would not have happened without the existence of BrickLink!

Eventually the kids grew out of building, but I didn't, so I took over the other side of the room too. In the end there was no more room to add new buildings so I had two choices. I could either stop developing or find a way to relocate and expand the layout.

To be able to expand I came up with the idea of showcasing the layout through the Internet and social media at the same time providing for the costs. So I founded a company, Navation Brickworks Oy, which aims to do that. I also got a little help from my employer, Navation Oy, thus the name of the company and the name of the town derive from there.

Although this is pretty much my own project for now, I'm getting a lot of help from my friends and colleagues. They are my technical backend team and test audience among other things. Thank you so much guys!

VIDEO FOOTAGE AND IMAGES

Above is the first video I produced of the layout and it's kind of a teaser of the whole thing. There are many Lego modular or non-modular cities introduced in Youtube, some of them even bigger than Navatown. The idea is to present Navatown my own, unique way, using modern video editing tools to add value to the content. You'll also find a color version when you visit the Navation Brickworks Youtube channel. Please subscribe and support Navatown!

There will be more video footage and images in the coming weeks. I will be displaying single buildings inside and out. Most of the buildings have finished interior but some of them are still unfinished.

Shorter videos will be released on Tiktok and most of the images will be published on Instagram. I will inform you about new content on Twitter. Navation Brickworks also has a Facebook page.

FUN FACTS

The exact amount of Lego parts is unknown but I can quite comfortably say the layout has over 200 000 of them. There are around 55 buildings depending on how to count them and what you consider to be a building. All the 15 modular buildings that were out before 2021 are represented and there over 40 of those sets alone used all together. Add dozens of other Lego sets and a huge number of parts ordered from Bricklink and bought straight from the Lego Stores around the world.

Many of the parts are tiles. I love studless design so even many of the original modular buildings have been customized with tiles to cover studs. The base has been raised by a brick and a plate to enable me to build stronger infrastructure to do some tricks which would not have been possible without that.

The layout has iterated a lot during the years. Every custom building has been either built again at least once from the scratch or at least gone through some major cosmetic changes. There is nothing left as it was from 2008 when it all started. I know the city looks a bit empty so what's missing? Minifigs and vehicles of course! I wanted to take initial video and images without them but there will certainly be footage with them later on.