MOC: Steamnarium of Mr. Edward Higgs

 Above the barren and obscure wastelands near the Imperial London rises an odd and huge figure. But it is not one of the giants of the old age. It is a machine and it is a house, in fact it is the homely home of Mr. Edward Higgs, eccentric inventor and gentleman who definitely respects peace and desolation.

Higgs's home is a typical home of an bachelor (at least on some aspects). There isn't that clean as there's no one to nag about things. As Higgs's inventing projects take some room (one of the three floors) and the machinery of the house isn't that small neither (it is an old steam sawmill tower) he has his bedroom, toilet and the old boiler room all in the same space. Isn't that handy? He doesn't have room for chairs around his table, but fortunately he can sit on the stairs while eating. The sewer system is also very compact and helps Higgs to avoid the sewage costs.

As it would be troublesome and time-consuming to climb all the 32 ladders when coming home, Higgs has built a fold-out ramp for his helipack on the first floor. There is also a big steamp-powered hoister above the ramp to make it easy to lift heavy objects into the house. Another of Higgs's homely inventions is the big propeller on the wall of the first floor. It is not an air conditioning system, but a wind tunnel propeller that helps Higgs to make his airs vessels as aerodynamic as possible.

This MOC is an entry for Eurobricks' Home Sweet Home Sci-Fi contest. When the contest began, a mention of a steampunk entries woke my interest, but I had too many projects to work with back then. But on Sunday I though that heck, now I have time and three days left before the deadline. Well, I began making a few sketches; I'm trying to get into an architecture line on an university and that was also kind of a training for the entrance examinations. I finally ended up with a idea of a house on four tall supports, which was based on painting a did five or six years ago, inspired by this sawmill memoriam in my hometown. The painting is actually hanging above my screen right now. I made the MOC a bit more homely than the painting, which had a couple of sand green cottages on the lower part (an idea which I used on The Twisted Victorian) and was pretty much machine-like on the other parts.

I'm very happy that I managed to build and photograph this thing in only two days. That was really a hectic build. Luckily my schoolwork for this year is done and I'm basically on my summer vacation now - I have a summer job but it begins in July, so there's still couple of months to go. Good times.

-Pate-keetongu