LEGO Icons 11371 Shopping Street is clearly built at an angle, but there's plenty more geometry that went into its unique shape.
The LEGO Group has shared a video packed with insights from the people who worked on the next modular building, 11371 Shopping Street, including the designer, Hoang Huy Dang. He has already discussed elsewhere how the idea for 11371 Shopping Street started with the empty space right in the middle, but an explanation of some of his early sketches reveals there's so much more to it.
Deciding to map a whole build around an alleyway (an homage to Hoang's own childhood home) led to a need to angle buildings around that central point. To do so and ensure that it would fit on a typical modular building footprint, Hoang pulled on geometrical theories that the Modular Buildings Collection's creator, Jamie Berard, couldn't even imagine at first.
"He started to work with triangles and this geometry that, I have to admit, I didn't know was possible," explained Jamie. "I like geometry, but I'm a three, four, five triangle kind of guy. When I used to be on the team, I'd be doing my maths with just these simple triangles – and then Hoang and Mike come in, and they're doing compound triangles and reflective triangles. I hear so much about triangles from these guys."
While we can't claim to know any more (and probably quite a bit less) about triangles and geometry than Jamie, thankfully Hoang can explain further. The entire footprint of 11371 Shopping Street is made up of triangles, with reflective triangles fitting into the shape of the buildings when viewed from above.
Those triangles went on to create the footprint of the two buildings, connected by the same 'bridge' that spans the centre of the set.
"You will see a geometry and a way of building this model that you have never seen before," Jamie assured LEGO fans at the end of the video.
To experience the weird and wonderful angles of 11371 Shopping Street yourself, the LEGO Icons set will be available to buy from January 1, 2026, retailing at £229.99 / $249.99 / €249.99.
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