Ever seen a creation that looked so correct, so belonging or so right, that you could be convinced nature itself created it? If you haven't picked up on what I'm getting at, I'm talking about houses that flow with nature. Almost as if the mountain (or whatever) was carved ever-so-delicately to hold the structure. These types of builds demonstrate the important ability to improvise with your canvas. These builds are what make people go 'wow.'

Most players, myself included, would much prefer flattening out a huge chunk of land for their nice home instead of trying to work with a jagged, hilly forest. Its the natural thing to do, its easier on you, so don't blame yourself for it. Your flat-land is perfect for a nice home, but, with a little elbow grease you can pull off something much, much cooler.
This tutorial will cover the know-how on building with the landscape, as well as designing a nice, realistic home or structure.

Lets begin, shall we? Every great piece of art starts with a canvas, and much to your surprise, this canvas won't be flat. I hope to make this as interactive as possible. Reading isn't already the funnest thing to do, so its always nice to get the reader involved. Heres the canvas we'll be using:








Now that we have our canvas, we can begin plans for the build. Now, for those participating, feel free to formulate your own ideas of what you'd like to transform this hill into. Since we're on the topic, its important not to limit yourself in terms of creativity and what you want to build, regardless of your canvas. Make the canvas work for you, and no, that doesn't mean destroy the canvas to your liking. Simply work around/with it.

After some thought, I've realized a few good spots that would be nice for a home of mine. That open cave would be a nice hallway, and that flat side of the hill (center left) would make a nice windowed area. I can also make use of the fact that this hill has a nice flat top, perhaps a pool area?

I've came up with some basic plans for this structure, its not completely thought out - and it doesn't need to be. Personally I work better when I build around my main ideas, but again, thats just me. Build as you like, just build with the landscape is all. So, lets begin, shall we?




I made adequate use of that open cave area and turned it into.. err, somewhat of a hallway for now. This is only the beginning, I've made the walls - identifying the block scheme as primarily wooden. (We'll visit block schemes later) Those open pockets will be windows, nice and tall. This will correspond with a somewhat modern theme, tall windows are a cliche in modern homes. Notice how my block scheme and general theme are starting to take shape. This build needs more then wood, lets add something for variance. Afterwards we can move onto the concepts of realism and block schemes.





Alright, the hallways exterior is complete, and we've accented our block scheme with some stone bricks. Take note of how I didn't destroy a single block whilst making it, its important that its shape flows with the hill. This usually creates some neat, slightly abnormal shapes that add a nice and unique effect. Onto some important concepts, just so you know, these don't have anything to do with this tutorials aim but they are essential concepts that help almost any build look much better. I'll be applying the concepts to the build in this tutorial, feel free to skip this next part if you like.











In caveman terms, you make things look real. Applying this concept in Minecraft is pretty simple, for example: You're building a restaurant and need tables but Minecraft, sadly, doesn't have a 'table' block. You must improvise, perhaps using extended piston-tops as tables will do. To elaborate, you improvised, added realism to your restaurant with tables, and this is a 'correspondence to actuality.'


One form of Realism that I almost always use when building is to imagine that my build is in real life. By doing this, I take gravity into consideration. That hallway in which we constructed would collapse under its own weight, so we need supporting pillars to hold it up. By adding things like this, we convey a sense of realism across the build. Doing this can emphasize your overall theme or the builds purpose, show off your skills of improvisation in some cases, and remind people of places they've been because your building looks so real (which is always a nice thing.)





Now that we've got Realism in the bag, I'd like to quickly skim over Block Schemes. They aren't anything complicated, really. In short, blocks should always look like they belong with each other. Different patterns and colors should clash into something wonderful, like brick and sandstone. Although they are two drastically different blocks, one accents the other perfectly. Its up to you to figure out which blocks look good together. But always try and use neat combinations for a good effect.

We can now move onto the construction of the interior. The hallway in its current state looks nice on the outside, but rather brutal on the inside. When it comes to interior, it is OK to destroy or re-face some of the land, its inevitable that you will have to. Just don't abuse it, it should be kept in the same general shape at all times. Revisiting block schemes, I'm going for a modern theme and need a floor for the hallway that matches up nicely with a primarily wooden theme. I'm thinking light stone slabs.