Houses of Bruges

CONCEPT

I'd been mulling over making some souvenir houses for a while, and thought it might be fun to do a sort of micro street art project with dozens of little facades mounted in discreet locations.

Then I thought it might be possible to extend that a little by drilling holes in an unsuspecting tree or stray piece of wood, anda creating a little street facade for an insect suburb.

Printables announced an insect hotel competition and in a very short time (I think rightly) cancelled it due to safety concerns.   However, Prusament PLA, along with modest (terrible?) weathering properties does not contain Endocrine disrupting pathogens so I thought surely an entrance doorway would not be a problem?

I have left instructions below, but they would be cool just as a little decoration.

I have provided an STL for a backing piece which allows them to be free standing as a shelf ornament as an alternative.

INSPIRATION

It's pretty clear where the idea came from,  if you take in the detail of the photo I've taken in Bruges, then at the souvenir cake tins!

PRINTING

House models are numbered from left to right, 1 to 5.

Print one facade or all - colours are not intended to be compulsory, but are a useful reference between STL file and this photo.

There are no tricks and no special processes - all coloured parts are separate pieces that can be assembled with a little superglue, and in most cases fit snugly into place.  Use a few drops of glue on the backing to secure each facade in place.

I've used Prusament PLA, 0.2mm layer heights, standard SPEED settings and a 0.4mm nozzle.    

INSECT ACCOMODATION

The original concept involved marking through the openings on a likely piece of timber'

Drilling appropriately sized insect loving holes.  NOTE, there's some evidence that ragged holes are not so good for insect well being, so if you are going to do this, take a little time to deburr them!  (Perhaps the photos are a little misleading in this!)

Had I proceeded I would have charred around the holes to give a nice insect safe black colour to the background.   I've allowed for a tiny countersunk screw fixing in the backing plate of each house, but in real life, a small dollop of superglue would be a lot easier.