Transamerica Building
The Transamerica building is one I've wanted to build in Lego for quite some time.  I've seen it done very nicely in Lego before, but I wanted to do it differently.  It presents quite the challenge with all the angles, the steep slope and the truss work at the base of the building.  But it sure adds something to the skyline of thriving Lego metropolis.

Interesting Facts about the REAL Transamerica Building:

  • Location: San Francisco, CA
  • Height: 853' (260m)
  • Stories: 48
  • Built: 1972
  • Probably not even in the running for the tallest building, but it sure is neat!

This is the core of the building.  As you can see, the lower part of the model is done studs-up.  The studs-up base then narrows to a column up the middle of the pyramid (the blue part).  The white parts at the top of the column are the protrusions for the elevator shafts.

The four sides are built with the studs going sideways.  This allowed me to get a much smoother taper on the sides since I could step using plate heights rather than brick widths.

The sides are attached to the central post using 1x1 plates with clips and the 1x2 with the hinge bar.  I spent quite some time calculating the correct positions for the clips to get the geometry to work out properly.  But I'm quite pleased with the overall effect.

Here are the four sides.  You can see that there are holes in the middle of the two sides on the left.  These are 3 and 1/3 bricks high and fit snugly over the 4 stud wide elevator protrusions that are attached to the core.

I've shown the outside of two sides, and the inside of two of them.   Its easy to tell the 'inside' sides because they have other colors sprinkled around.  If you squint closely, you might be able to see the clips that are spread along the insides (4 places on the sides with the elevator holes, and 5 places on the other two sides).

Its difficult to tell from this picture, but most of the sides are 2 studs wide.  But there are many spots where I had to make them only a single stud wide so that the walls would fit together and dodge appropriately around various protrusions.   If you look closely, you can see some of these places on the multicolored sides.   For example, the very bottom row of bricks is only one stud wide, about 1/2 way up the left edge of the right most side you can see some 1 stud wide sections.  Also all the way up both edges of the 'elevator hole' sides are 1 brick wide (again, most easily seen on the inside of that wall [the multicolored one]).

Here's a close up showing detail on the double angled trusses.

Here's a Minifig's eye view looking up at the Transamerica Pyramid.

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