Design of the Week: 3D Printed Models of London

This week’s selection is the highly detailed 3D Printed Models of London by Michal Konicek.

The project was to produce a highly detailed 3D print from sections of the city of London. Evidently Konicek is one of the founders of Accucities, a 3D mapping company based in the UK. As part of their work they’ve acquired a very detailed 3D model of portions of the downtown areas of London, those including most of the notable landmarks. 

While they intended to use these for business purposes – and indeed do offer the 3D models for sale – they were apparently repeatedly asked by colleagues for prints. After some deliberation, they decided to launch a Kickstarter to provide a way for anyone to purchase some of these models. 

The prints are broken down into a grid of two scales, but each on a 14cm square plate. The detailed model covers 500m per side, while the larger model covers more area, 1000m per side, and thus has smaller 3D buildings. 

You can choose which particular sections of London you’d like to print from a portion of Accucities’ currently captured areas. So far they have captured 25 square km as you can see in the chart. 

3D Printed Models of London

One interesting twist is that because Accucities is deeply involved in London city planning, they have access to data regarding buildings that have yet to be constructed. Thus the tiles can include buildings that will appear in the future, so they will not be out of date as fast as you might imagine. 

The models are consecutive, so if you’d like you can buy an entire area and join the tiles together. They’ve included embedded magnets on the sides to ensure they stick together properly. 

While their retail price is set to be £149 (USD$195) per tile, their launch offers pricing as low as £85 (USD$112) per tile. There are further discounts if you purchase multiple tiles as a group. 

This is an interesting idea that could be a very appropriate gift for anyone interested in architecture, city planning or London. It’s too bad Accucities has only London data, but perhaps they will offer this in other cities in the future. 

Via Kickstarter and Accucities