I spent a lot of time just staring at this puzzle. Somehow I couldn't visualise the best way to break the large molecule up into parts that could bond along the edges of the output. The components I settled on, (2L's, 2Sticks, 1Y and an elbow), feel about as large as you can get away with and still maneuver them around to bond into the output.

There's a couple of ungainly stick walks to keep it within height 7, but otherwise I'm happy with this one. I find the final construction very satisfying to watch. All these seemingly randomly dropped parts suddenly crystallise into the output very quickly. Still not confident that this is competitive for minimum area, probably there's some trick I'm missing.