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Hello there! Today (Hopefully) you can learn something about making a good medieval structure!

I am not doing a tutorial on building in general because there are way too many things to go over and a very broad topic is hard to explain.

Also thank you to zand3r96 for making my flash art in the first pic! <3

Q&A Before we start

#1 What makes me qualified?

I am a teacher at the Mithrintia Academy and spend some of my time teaching people how to build there.
I also have my own server where I show people how to improve builds and have seen thousands (No Joke) of builds asking for rates. I believe I have the building skill to show others how to make their creation great!

#2 Texture Packs? Which to use!?

Since we are doing medieval I believe the best one is dokucraft, customizable dokucraft versions are also nice like the CN Texture Pack and the Mithrintia Texture Pack. Since dokucraft is medieval themed it is optimal but I also like to use Palceon. In this tutorial we will be using both Doku and Palceon.

#3 How Big Should You Make it?

Usually with medieval buildings they are small and have 2 floors, 3 max for homes. But you can go big and do things like 500,000 block cathedrals. For today we will be doing the small houses shown on the top reel.

#4 Should I Put A Chimney?

Well let me put this very clear, if I see one person who read this article and makes a medieval house without a chimney I will kill them.

Quick Overview on Medieval Architecture:

The main types are:

Romanesque Era Architecture 1050-1200

• Stone used in the Romanesque period was cut in precision and were either limestone or deep marble depending on areas
  
• The use of the Roman arch made it possible to decrease the amount of stone used and increase the amount of strength the building can handle
  
• Buttresses were introduced to support the wanning walls of the heavy stone
  
• Vaults made of 3-4 arches were cut of stone supported by wood plankings
  

Gothic Era Architecture 1200-1400

• The use of Gothic architecture made walls able to be thinner and stronger due to the use of buttresses.
  
• Wider Window Openings
  
• Gothic Rose Windows
  
• Flying Buttresses
  
• An increasing amount of towers
  
• Decorative designs and sculptures using gargoyles
  

Renaissance Era Architecture 1400-1500

• Colored Glass
  
• Columning Hallways
  
• Geometric tile stylings
  
• Exotic Wood Floorings
  

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On To The Tutorial!
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Detailing-

• Example: As you can see this house is full of detail. This is probably to me the most important aspect of the build.
  

• Key In Detail: Detail is very important in a build, keep in mind the bigger the build the more detail you can add into it!
  

• Depth: Adding depth is a effective way to put in detail and texture into your build! An easy way to do this is by placing blocks either forward or backward from each other as you see here!
  

• Materials in Depth: Use odd materials you usually would not use in a build to make it stand out from the rest. My favorite to use are trap doors, fences, buttons, levers, pressure plates, and ladders! The more unique and well thought out your build is the better it will look! There are dozens of medieval houses that look the same and as well as doing that you can go even more creative then using odd materials. You can even have a roof made out of wheat! I tried to make a roof I would like and this looked good to me in this texture pack it also is very unique.
  

• Playing Around: Subtract and add items to a build and kind of play around with it until you like how it looks. Took me about 30 minutes to decide if I wanted dark planks or light planks xD I am so derp.
  

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Shape-

• No Squares Bases: Do NOT make a square shaped house base. Instead but in fancy curves to make it more appealing to the eye, use circles and if you REALLY have to you can use rectangles.
  

• Floors: If you are doing 2 stories usually you should extend the 2nd story out 1-2 blocks more than the 1st floor. In the olden days people only had to pay taxes on the square footage of the ground floor so they cheated the system by making the 2nd floor have a higher amount of square feet.
  

• Think Outside The Box: A shape like this is not as boring as a square and allows you to customize it how you want. It forces you to think outside the box. With medieval builds some styles include having some shapes in some areas and some in others depending on interior theme.
  

• Geometric Shapes: A variety of geometric shapes are good for minecraft despite the block'iness. Circles, Concave Polygons, Convex Polygons, Pentagons, and Rectangles are great for base shapes. This one has a half circle as a terrace in the middle and it is in between 2 triangle/rectangle arch.
  

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Greenery-

• Flowers: Use flowers, you can use them as flower pots on the side of the building to add some depth if need be and also around a path way.
  

• Trees: Use redwood trees for houses meant to be in northern colder areas of the world themed around places like Sweden and Scotland and all those northern countries. Then more decidious trees for the traditional warm area houses like in France. Also adding vines to a build is good, you can do it with either leaf block or a regular vine block. I prefer the leaf block though.
  

• Pathways: As a pathway make it look broken up like having half of it grass and the other half cobble/gravel/grass. Makes it look worn down and made by hand.
  

• Streams: Streams do not hurt, use streams sparingly but they look good outside of the build, put flowers and grass right out side of the stream and even make a building special by possibly making it a grain mill with the water like I did here.
  

• Mushrooms: Use mushrooms underneath trees under dark areas with little lighting. Use these sparingly as well but they add a medieval feel to the area.
  

• Terrain: For areas supposed to be warm, use rolling hills and flat lands. Now for areas supposed to be northern and cold use mountain with voxelsniper like liltaco67 did here.
  
  

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Interior-

• Detail: It is just as important in interiors as the exteriors
  

• Kitchen Appliances: Using pressure plates on top of blocks are very useful! If you have spawning plugins you can do /i burningfurnace and it will give you a furnace that is always lit up! Useful for making stoves or putting in bakeries. Also have a area that makes it seem like the smoke from the stove leads to the chimney.
  

• Furniture: You can use many materials for furniture, pressure plates on top of fences work well for tables as a simple design as well as stairs with 2 signs put on each side. You can also make tables with pistons and with upside down stairs even though it is tedious. People also use slabs to make couches etc. but I don't like them as much personally.
  

• Flooring: You should use grain materials for floors like planks because it looks authentic. Carpeting with wool should only be used in large areas like palaces and is usually a pathway inside a area rather then just in a room. You can also use various patterns in the flooring to be creative.
  

• Bedroom: Use beds in the bedroom if you want to be a little more creative you can use wool and snow covering to make a bed yourself, the snow covering being the pillows. There should be minimal paintings and a window or 2 for natural light.
  

• Lighting: Very important in a build even though people do not think it. If it is supposed to be a dark alley store try and do minimal lighting with some windows. Depends on what you are trying to do really. Attics almost always should have little lighting while bedrooms and store areas should be candle-lit.
  

• Attics: Attics should have crates and storage materials, you can even put a closet or 2 in here. I like to use up almost all the space I can in a house.
  

• Paintings: Paintings should be seldom used and to me they only look good in texture packs where there is a lot of detail and they arn't completely random like a karate person?
  

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Supports-

• Arches: Medieval buildings are FULL of arches! I always try and put 1-2 in every medieval build I do. They are historically accurate for medieval builds, it is one of the strongest structural formations and was used widely in houses to support weight. This can be used either on the interior or exterior. Upside-down stairs also make great small arches!
  

• Columns: Use columns to support the weight of the building. It is minecraft but using columns adds great depth to builds! You can customize it many ways. You can see the inner-sandstone columns I did and the arches above the entrance.
  

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Block Choice-

• Pallete: Depends on where you want the build to be themed at. Use darker woods for colder areas and lighter woods for the warmer areas. You should always put a pallete in the front of your build to remind yourself to stay on that color path.
  

• Colorations: For each texture pack it differs but they will usually have a common theme. Like in this build I have a lighter sandstone colored palette and I should have the other blocks reflect that and be more light than dark. So the blocks in front here are all in the same color spectrum.
  

Here are both a light palette and a dark palette:



Other useful tips! -

• Medieval roads should be have the last 2 perimeter blocks on each side a slab below the regular blog height, this was used as a drainage system and you can use it for a stream downhill!
  

• Interiors should be packed with stuff and have a lot of smoke (webs) in them with minimal lighting!
  

• Terraforming is easily performed by voxesniper! A complete wiki is here
  

• To make a road look broken up even more use a step on the height of the ground to make it seem like it is chipped or broken!
  

• If you want to make a signature medieval roof have it look like a upside down V and a ornament on the top! I like to use slabs and stairs for that!
  

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Thank you for reading and I hope this makes you become a better builder at medieval architecture :)

If you enjoyed this please diamond/favorite/comment/subscribe to see updates of my posts.

Thanks again :D -Zeus-

Also uioz is very very derp go check him out

www.planetminecraft.com/members/uioz/