Neighbors (in the flat house)

Project leader: Petr Budina (Petronel)

A group project of kostky.org LUG

In August 2014, a special announcement appeared in kostky.org forum: "for all good neighbors" - and this is how a completely new kind of group projects started in our forum: an open collaboration on the common model, a house. This project shows a life (and interactions) of people in a fictional big flat house. There are 64 rooms plus two bigger modules (a staircase and an elevator). The goal of this project was – thanks to small proportions of the individual rooms – to bring more AFOL members to start active building for exhibitions (altogether 30 AFOLs were participating, each of them contributed with 1–3 rooms).

Exhibition? Yes, and the successful one!

The "M" moment came: the big LEGO show at Lipno, 2015 (the biggest LEGO exhibition that year, in Czech Republic) was the first time we completed our model. To be sure, Petr organized building of another three extra rooms but we did not need them at all. Although we started collecting all rooms just a night before the show, all contributors delivered their rooms and after putting them together we could see our model complete, for the first time. But not only us! Starting next day, crowds of visitors, of all ages, grouped around this house and enjoyed the unusual level of details and life shown there. At the end of the exhibition, this project was named "the idea of the year"! After this success, we showed the house at the next big LEGO exhibition, too - in Brno.

Not only the project was successful among visitors, at exhibitions, but also the influence back into kostky.org group was great, maybe even more important. Thanks to Petr's vision and leadership the power of cooperation became evident. And so the goal of the project: to encourage and motivate (new) kostky.org members to build models for exhibitions, was fulfilled without any question. And not only because the project was successful in the end! Even before that, for the time of preparations and building there was a completely new atmosphere: people discussed problems together, helping each other not only with advice or ideas but even LEGO parts or any other help, as it was needed. Simply, we all lived for one goal, one common idea. It was an unforgettable time for all participants.

Petr achieved even more than his original plan was: he encouraged not only new builders but also other kostky.org members to start their own group projects. This way, the project "Neighbors" became a great proof of the fact the result model may be something much more then just a sum of several (thousands) plastic pieces!