Brickvention 2025: New Hashima Down Under
/In the world of LEGO fan shows and AFOL collaborations, New Hashima is turning heads in a big way. The New Hashima Down Under collab was recently exhibited at Brickvention 2025 in Melbourne, Australia and consistently drew a crowd over the weekend.
New hashima down under
BrickNerd chatted to one of the coordinators, Joshua Morris, about his inspiration and challenges.
Sue Ann: Hi there! What inspired you to build in the New Hashima standard?
Joshua: Seeing the insane eighty+ person New Hashima collaboration from Brickworld Chicago 2023 certainly lit a spark within me. Attempting New Hashima was going to be a big task! We needed to assemble a crack team of Aussie AFOLs to tackle a massive collaboration of this size. I reached out to people that I know and admire to see who was keen. From there, New Hashima Down Under (NHDU) was born.
With the wealth of resources and experience from builders like Stefan Formentano, the designer of the cube, and Simon Lui, who headed up the Brickworld collab, and the massive New Hashima Discord community driving and inspiring each other on to be better, we were away! But we had to ask ourselves: What had we agreed to? Would our sanity prevail? Or had we bitten off more than we were capable of?
new hashima down under
Sue Ann: What was it about New Hashima that you really drew you to the collab?
Joshua: Top builders working to a high level of detail. Working in the Cyberpunk genre and the addition of lights, movement and screens to the build to really lift New Hashima making it an unforgettable MOC experience for the public and AFOLs.
Sue Ann: How many people were involved in the New Hashima collab at Brickvention?
Joshua: Ten very skilled builders attended Brickvention 2025 as part of New Hashima. They all bought unique skills to this collaboration. Participants included: Handoko Setyawan, Jackson Shapiera, Helena Geyer, Graham Brewin, Mark Curnow, Lewis Meeny, Tom Scott, Liam Hunter, Rohan Beckett, and myself. Five of the builders were from Sydney, two from Canberra, three from Melbourne.
the New Hashima down under team
Sue Ann: How did you coordinate building the various sections?
Joshua: We started a Messenger chat, and shared a Google drive with files and information on the worldwide standards for New Hashima. From there, Handoko and myself set about designing the two tower bases and creating the landscaping standard. This allowed others to concentrate on their own cubes, toppers, monorail and additional landscaping while staking out where they would like to be.
Sue Ann: New Hashima appears to involve lots of parts. Do you all have extensive collections of parts?
Joshua: First and foremost, the cost alone would have been staggering if we didn’t have the support of amazing sponsors like Bricks to the World, Lightailing, Light My Bricks, DD Bricks, and Glowbricks. But the short answer would be, yes! A basic cube alone is 500-600 parts before even adding your own buildings and figs.
Sue Ann: Were there any particular challenges with the collab at Brickvention?
Joshua: The time to set up was around twelve hours over two days as it was the first time setting up the entire build. We had a lot of walkways to construct on site as well as wiring all the towers up to mains power. We achieved this by allowing a hole in the base of all the cubes to run USB and 9V power for the motors and lights. In theory, this is easy, but on the day, it is fraught with tangles and other complications. We also had some toppers being rebuilt on site due to unexpected damage enroute.
Sue Ann: If you could change anything about the collab at Brickvention, what would it be?
Joshua: More time to make it even bigger!
new hashima down under
new hashima down under
Sue Ann: What do you think are the best features of New Hashima?
Joshua: The level of detail, height, lights, movement and teamwork
Sue Ann: Are lighting, movement and visuals important to the build?
Joshua: They all contribute to making NHDU a more immersive experience. It draws people in with the size of the build, hooks them on the finer details, jokes, movement, and lights.
Sue Ann: Are there any features that are key elements that must be included?
Joshua: The basic cube and exterior walkways are vital as a starting point. Also a sense of fun, teamwork, communication, and support for each other are required.
setting up new hashima can be challenging
Sue Ann: How does one get started building in the New Hashima style?
Joshua: The best starting point is with the cube instructions and then reach out to people in your area, or the New Hashima online community, or arrange your own collaboration. The sky (or venue ceiling) is the limit!
Sue Ann: Have you displayed NHDU at other events?
Joshua: Handoko, Jackson and myself have previously displayed parts of NHDU at a Sydlug show in order to grasp all the bump in challenges and time investments needed.
Sue Ann: Thanks so much for sharing with us. Where to from here?
Joshua: The build will continue to grow with the addition of more builders in Sydney lending their skills to making NHDU even cooler. Next stop: BrickBuilt 2025 in Sydney!
Where would you like to see a New Hashima build next? Let us know in the comments below!
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