With apartment living filling up so rapidly in New Hashima, especially the city center, Hex Homes took on a different approach. Portions of the city were in disrepair and were torn down to make room for new, however rather than taking on the laborious approach to creating beautiful new building stock in these areas, the property owners came up with a new idea; establish a gridded superstructure and series of living modules. They figured this would not only revolutionize the market with each person getting their entirely “own home” and not be forced into tiny apartments. This would be an infinitely cheaper out-of-pocket solution, with a much greater return on investment! “You don’t even need to fill the space with empty pods, but get built and plugged in when one gets purchased!” 

Residents lined up to order their very own hex home. Inner City living in their own personal house? What’s not to love!! Upon moving in, occupants quickly realized the units were tiny like so many other living quarters in the area, but they did still get their own “home” at the very least. With the distaste from multiple inhabitants, a few have taken to prioritizing virtual reality chairs, escaping this new, yet tiny reality for a much larger and vivid world beyond.

Hex Homes takes a different approach to building within the New Hashima cube; rather than filling the cube as much as possible, how could a structure serve as void space with modules nested inside? The build takes the space of six cube modules stacked up two wide and three tall, being entirely hollow at the project’s beginning. Utilizing the rectangular support girder (part ID 64448) as the source of internal superstructure created a rigid and lightweight frame.

Once the grid was created, then I worked backwards establishing a small module that can plug into each pod and hang freely inside, only attaching at the halfway point in the hexagon, plugging into the center of the axle connector with three axles (Part ID 57585).

However, with a build being entirely open, running wiring to light the build became difficult with each pod needing to have its own source of lighting. Between the two stacks of cubes, runs a hollow wire chase where wires follow along the catwalks behind and lead back into it, simply exiting at the bottom. With modules resting above this in the city and its future iterations, a multi-port USB adapter is embedded within the top of the build to receive other necessary wiring. This module transports as one large build, sitting into a box, then with technic props attached so it does not shift, then plugs into the more grand New Hashima layout all at once.

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Special thanks to Eclipsegrafx and BrickStuff for sponsoring this collaborative project! Check out their websites to find awesome custom cyberpunk figures, accessories, and top-of-the-line lighting elements.

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