The only building guide you will need in Minecraft.

It is strange to think that a simple game such as Minecraft can have so many small details. Building in general, as well as in Minecraft, can be seen as a form of art. Making art, does require a set of steps to nail. With that being said here is everything you need to start building like a pro:

Pre-building:

There are some steps you need to make, in order, before you begin your build:

• Have a general idea before you begin. For example: "I want to build a medieval town". This might seem obvious, but you really need to plan ahead before you start building anything. Changing building style or idea midway can be destructive for your build.
• Research and Immersion. Lets say you decide to build an Egyptian style fishing village. Search on the internet how the Egyptian fishermen lived. Lifestyle, war-tactics, food, anything! Try to immerse your self in their living conditions. This will boost your fantasy and fantasy is essential in creating art.
• Have a general plan. This is the next step to having a general idea. Think exactly how many houses your town will have, how much space it will take etc.
• Prepare terrain. From a small house, to a gigantic city, preparing the terrain where you plan to build is really important, so that the build looks natural around the surrounding area.
• Build base of buildings. The next step to having a general plan. Visualising it. Going back to the Egyptian Village, start placing wool blocks on wherever you want to build the houses, making out their basic shape. Using colorful blocks like wool or terracota is usefull for laying out shapes and bases because, it is easier to make out than normal colours and secondly you can have different groups of building with different colours. For example brown indicate poor houses, whereas blue indicate rich etc.
• Build roads. Helps you visualise better your build. You can add detail to the roads later. Have a basic design for now.
• Look up images of what you are building. These can be from real life, other games, or even MInecraft itself. There is no shame in getting some inspiration. Thats why internet exists. Just make sure not to copy the whole build!
• Use World Edit please :) this is pretty simple to understand. Download World Edit. A huge relief, especially if you are building bigger structures...

Building:

Now, here are the steps of the actual building, again, in order. These steps will be given for one building. If your plan is to build multiple buildings, you will be following all the steps of the first building before moving on to the second one:

• Build foundation. Building the foundation first would help you visualise even better the end result, allowing you to make changes before you build half of the project.
• Build the walls, floor, ceiling and roof. Pretty self explanatory. This is the next step to your build.
• Shape terrain around your build. Now that you have a better idea of how the build looks, you will need to make it seem like it is built and embeded on the ground.
• Add decoration. Now, go inside. Add the interior, furnace, tables whatever you fancy. Go outside and plant some bushes.
• Add lighting. Lastly, make it night time(or wait for it if you are on survival) and add torches, end rods or whatever. If the you care about mobspawning, this part is important.

Tips while you are building:

These, in no particular order, are some things to take into consideration while building:

• Don't be afraid to use a lot of space. If you are thinking of making something big, you will most likely underestimate the size you need. You will get used to that, but for now add 20% more blocks of what you have already planned when planning your build.
• Build using common sense. This should be obvious, but it gets forgotten quite frequuently. Its simple. Poorer houses will have tighter spaces because they don't have money to have a lot room. A desert village won't have much access to wood and cobblestone, but will have access to sandstone, so the builds will mostly consist of sandstone. A building from America on the 1600s will appear shorter but wider than one from Europe since there was much more available land on the Americas, so building upwards was the solution to the Europians. This tip with is especially useful if you have done your research, before you started building.
• Avoid box shapes. Simple but powerful. Boxes are boring, build an L styled house instead of a square one (seen from above)
• Built with depth. Similarly to the box shape, but seeing it from another angle. Make sure that everything you build has layers and is not one block wide. Mostly applied to walls. Build the wall one block behind the column, add glass panes instead of glass blocks. Use buttons and trapdoors. All these can help.
• Use variation of blocks and colours for contrast. This applies to 2 things and should be done while you are decorating:

1) If a building is made out of wood, add a brick chimney, if the walls are made out of stone, make the roof out of wood, add a red stained glass on a mostly grey church, etc. Make sure there are more than main one colour on your build.

2) Build the same part of a build with different blocks. For example, when building a stone wall, you can add cracked or mossy bricks to it. When building an Oak roof, add some Spruche to make it appear old. Make sure there are more than 1 blocks that make up the roads. Also make it look like nature is trying to grow on the roads by adding grass, sand or whatever is around the road.

• Be creative. "Oh okay, whats next, just learn how to build?". Look... What I am trying to say is, use blocks in ways that they werent supposed to be used. One famous example is the unlit campfire, which makes a nice rail, bridge or whatever you wish.
• Don't copy paste stuff all the time. It is acceptable to have a basic design and everytime you copy it, make some changes, but don't overdo it.
• Use vegetation and custom trees! Plants grow everywhere, even in the nether with 1.16. Make sure you add them, they can be a huge relief when you try to add colour variety. But please don't add vanilla trees. We can all agree they are terrible looking.
• Lastly, ask for opinions. Simple as that. "Hey, does that look like a statue to you?", "Do you get creepy vibes when looking at this Manor I made?". Sometimes a second opinion can save your build.

Okay so this is everything there is to know. If you follow these steps you should be ready to build whatever you wish. Happy building! :)