Olympic Gardens

It’s a glorious summer’s day in the Olympic Gardens! Flowers are bursting into bloom, the breeze is light, and the citizens are enjoying the lovely golden afternoon. There are so many things to do in this beautiful diorama, including strolling by the elegant fountain, searching for hidden wildlife, and relaxing in the Garden Pavilion. The lady has just received a message on her phone from her best friend, the artist, to meet him at the park, for a portrait painting and a picnic! Who knows if she’s going to be happy with the result though, he seems to be going for more of a cubist caricature there. In the meantime, across the park, the confectioner has set up his stand for the day. And the little girl has messed up her directions and brought her large model sailboat to the one city park that doesn’t have a duck pond, but that won’t dampen her spirits. Small fountains work just as well! 

This 3,041 piece display model is full of details and surprises: 

5 beautiful, brick-built cypress trees, growing from elegant fluted planters around the park. It seems like the bees enjoy buzzing around the leaves, see if you can spot them all! 

A large, domed Garden Pavilion complete with a grapevine, perfect for relaxing and contemplation. A delightful picnic lunch is spread on the table, perfect for snacking. 

A large fountain presided over by a regal statue, and graced by water lilies and other flora. 

A confectioner with his cart of wares. He hasn’t sold any just yet, it’s still early, although it seems that someone else in the park has been sneaking treats…

There’s an easter egg hidden in one of the flower beds. See if you can figure out what it is, and what you could have built that it might have been inspired by! 

Try and find all the hidden parts scattered around the build, including lost coins, magenta frogs, and hiding insects!

This entry was the most difficult build I have ever tried to accomplish. I had been trying out techniques for a dome, to augment another building of mine, when I decided to create a garden pavilion, and to place it into a different type of building. It was previously going to be in a European style modular building with a rounded turret and a large promenade, but the geometry was too complex. Angular building is terribly difficult for me, and I most certainly do not have an engineering degree!

I wanted this to be more of a stand-alone display model, hence the large, consolidated footprint. Although there is a more or less established storyline of the artist and the lady, there are many ways that this build can be customized and changed to suit your needs. Although this was not one of the cases where I chose a unique piece and then built around it, the technic drums in the cypress planters are one of those pieces that I wanted to build around and use to create something unique. 

There were a few minor adjustments that I had to make while building this design. The horns visible in the stonework underneath the balustrades were originally going to be teacups placed in a very cool pattern, but I didn’t realize there were collisions until it was too late, so they were changed. 

This version of this build added a lot of extra parts, like the confectioner and his cart, the little girl and her model sailboat, a couple other small storylines, and an overhaul of the fountain statue, more in keeping with the character of the diorama piece. I especially like the flowers on either side of the fountain!