You know it from the moment you spawn in and start punching trees. If you want to survive the night, you need to find yourself a nice place to live. But we all inevitably suffer the Minecraft equivalent of writer’s block, and we are in need of some awesome Minecraft base ideas and designs.
Of course, building houses and walls has always been a fundamental part of surviving the nightly onslaught of Spiders and Skeletons. But our earliest endeavors inevitably turn into dirt cubes or simple oak cabins. Pretty soon, we all need to level up.
So, when you join a multi-player factions server and need a brilliant secret base, or you reach the point in a survival game where you have more diamonds and redstone than you know what to do with, it is probably time to get a bit more creative.
But where do you start? You have a lot of options. From mechanized doors to mob spawners, there will be something for everyone in this list of design ideas and all the essential things to put in them! If you are still looking searching for more, check out our list of 50 things to build!
Before we start, are you using Optifine? This mod can give your new base an incredible new sheen. It even adds a bunch of optional graphics features like dynamic lighting. Find out how to Install Optifine in Minecraft now!
10 of the best Minecraft base ideas
So, your Minecraft houses suck. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, we’ve all been there. You can’t help yourself but craft large, angular, vacant, straight-line-clad bunkers that look like they’re straight out of the 1940s.
Minecraft is a game where everything is cubic. But all the best Minecraft building design ideas ultimately come down to either putting the cubic aesthetic to interesting use or transcending it entirely. Alternatively, some players reimagine the idea of a Minecraft base altogether: picking up sticks and locating their new base of operations in the sky, the ocean, or the nether.
Here are some of the coolest base ideas out there right now to get you inspired:
Double-Pod Underwater Base
If you shudder at the thought of Creepers, Spiders, or Skeletons barging into your home – your best bet is to build a base underground. This Underwater Base by SheepGG allows for a restful slumber with the lull of calm waters completely surrounding your home.
This underwater pod extends into two sections and is connected by a main central hub that connects you to the surface. Inside the base, you don’t have to worry about any leaking as the water is remarkably held back by the crushingly resistant duo of Quartz blocks and Glass panes.
The cozy, atmospheric lounge area contains all your chests and essentials to bring along for adventuring. On your way up the indoor ladder, you can enjoy the sight of an idyllic seaweed garden at your pods’ roofs too.
Minecraft Mini-Fortress
This ‘Ultimate Survival Base’ Tutorial from Reimiho has everything you need to survive the night… and many nights after.
Essentially, this base idea is a spin on a simple fortress. A stone wall surrounds the complex with a large gate in front, and inside the walls of the fortress stands a modernist cobblestone, oak, and glass structure.
Everything you need to sustain your lifestyle is present here, but it’s hardly spacious. That’s not always a bad thing – the less ground your valuable base covers the easier it’ll be to defend. But the most important thing about this design is that it’s extremely three-dimensional, which is one of the reasons it looks so great. Not even the glass panels that cover the expansive walls are flat!
Circular Ground Base
Another architectural marvel is this gorgeous Circular Underground and Ground Base by Moby-Dick. This Colosseum-like homestead eclipses Minecraft’s cubic limits with its gigantic cylindrical features.
This underground base uses Wood and Wood-type blocks across all its wooden floors. On the second and highest floor of the complex, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a wheat field primed for harvest, lit up by spaced-out lanterns. Below it is an open, paved space that’s reminiscent of an outdoor lobby area.
Perhaps not the most fortified, but nothing some Minecraft wall designs or fences can’t fix. The lobby area also comes with contemporary gardens and stone-fenced fish ponds overlooking the open-air basement.
The basement or underground area is where you’ll get the most foot traffic. Chests, furnaces, and enchanting tables all scatter around the circular bottom floor. Unlike most secured Minecraft base designs, your treasured valuables are plainly visible from the outside.
Mountain Face Base
We’ve all done it: we built our home base by mining at the heart of a mountain countless times before. This Survivalist Cozy Mountain Abode by IrieGenie takes our penchant for that by carving an impressive overhanging abode in a steep mountain face.
The interior is as stunning as it looks on the outside: a busy brewing room on the top floor, a modern kitchen and dining room right below it, a master’s bedroom, and a serviceable toilet area.
Loving this look? Here are some unique Minecraft furniture ideas to keep your Minecraft heart burning with inspiration!
Stone Bridge Temple Base
Ever wanted to live like a Greek god or goddess? With this Stone Bridge Survival Base by Moby-Dick—you can turn your dreams into a reality in Minecraft.
This entirely Stone structure features an intricate layering of Cobblestone Slabs, walls, Stone Slabs, and Blocks. A staircase acts as the first barrier of defense against hordes of enemies looking to thrash the premises. Inside, a golden hue of light greets you after a busy day exploring and foraging the nearby wilderness.
Just as fun it is to stroll and admire this marvelous domicile, we recommend catching some slack by exploding some stuff up as well in this Minecraft Duplication Glitch tutorial.
Survivalist Underground Base
For some, sky-rise buildings and stone castles are getting a bit stale and overused. If you share the same sentiments, you may be enticed by this Modern Underground Base by IrieGenie.
This contemporary bunker-like shelter contains all the homey elements you’ll ever need—a bedroom, storage area, furnace, and kitchen. If you’re scouting for your base from the outdoors, the biggest adjustment from your typical multi-story fortresses is how little indication there is of your base’s location.
Within your Skinned Log walls are cozy living quarters that can make for a great home. Instead of towering walls, you get Stone Brick slabs surrounding the vicinity of your rooms.
These are your only real line of defense—so make sure you’re home’s wired with Redstone traps to prevent enemies from making any unwelcomed visits
Tower-House Hybrid
This ‘Ultimate Starter Base Tutorial’ from BlueBits combines the best Minecraft towers and protective fortresses have to offer, helping you keep everything you’ll need to survive and thrive in either a survival world or a multi-player factions world in one very compact unit.
Inspired by Medieval/Castle-themed homesteads, this is designed to be a starter base. But it will likely take quite a bit of resource preparedness before you can get building. This relatively simple wood and cobblestone house is complemented by a trim platform on the roof, alongside a multi-level farm and crafting station.
Best of all, there are two towers built-in, protruding through the top. This not only makes your house look awesome, but it’s also hard to overstate how useful a vantage point is from fending off attacks – whether they are mobs or enemy factions.
Underwater Mountain House
Have you ever heard of an ‘Underwater Mountain House’? This tutorial from Zaypixel shows off this unique concept, which takes a lot of the tenants of a classic underground base and throws it on its head.
Essentially, the design takes an expansive chunk out of an ocean wall and fits in all the utilities you’d expect from a modern Minecraft base. In the tutorial, you can see a bedroom, a crafting room, and a kitchen, just to name a few.
But best of all is the awe-inspiring view of the deep blue sea out your living room window to top it off.
This concept is infinitely customisable – so don’t feel constrained by the tutorial. Although this base has an above-water entrance, you can implement an underwater entrance to up the security factor even further.
I promise you: an elaborate underwater entrance is perhaps the best way to keep violent mobs and enemy players at bay. Either that, or risk getting attacked by the Drowned over, and over, and over again.
To get the most out of this one, you will probably want to install some graphics mods first. Struggling to run the mods that make Minecraft look amazing? Why not check out our guide to upgrading to White RAM in 2021?
A Fortified Tower for Any Biome
This ‘How to Build a Fortified Tower’ Tutorial from Minecraft Sekai shows you how to construct an impressive outpost or watchtower. It features in-built fortifications to make breaking into this bad boy an extremely difficult endeavor.
This is because the stone foundations are topped up with a spider-like wooden wrap, with a house-type structure on top. This essentially splits the structure into two layers. It has a sort-of-keep area that acts as an entrance at the bottom and an accommodation on top.
Best of all, you can change the type of wood you use (or switch it out for something else) to use this design in whichever biome you need to. Not only that, but the design is also so unique that your factional enemies might leave it alone, simply because they’re so impressed with it.
Emphasis on the word ‘might’. Apart from that, it’s the perfect shape to be defended.
Multi-Platform Farmhouse
This Minecraft house tutorial from JUNS MAB implements an interesting way to organize your farms and offer a bit of protection at the same time. Oh, and as an aside, it looks amazing. Make sure you have a good mouse for this, you’re going to be doing a lot of building and clicking!
By creating an expansive, multi-layered complex of dirt platforms protected by fences, you’ll have both a handy way to separate your different crops and livestock while keeping your homestead a singular, comprehensive unit – making it way easier to defend.
As a bonus, the space underneath the various platforms allows you to double up, having twice as many crops in the same plot of land. Alternatively, that space could be used to hide your most valuable treasures extremely subtly.
The lack of fortification otherwise may limit this design’s utility in faction servers. But it offers more than enough protection for even the fiercest of hardcore worlds.
5 Essential Features Every Minecraft Base Needs
But designing the outside of your Minecraft bases or houses is only the beginning of the process. Once you have, you’ll need to decide what structures and devices you’d like to put in and around it. The following list can help you gain some Minecraft base inspiration.
Once again, you may not know where to start. What kind of stuff should you put in your Minecraft base? What are some easy Minecraft redstone automations you can build in Survival or Hardcore?
From mob spawners to secret entrances, indestructible walls to automatic item sorters, there are features here for any base style, size, and level of redstone complexity.
But before we get started though, are you running your own server? Some of these contraptions may tax your system more than usual. If you are concerned, check out our easy guide to allocating more RAM to your Minecraft Server!
Here are some great Minecraft base ideas that you could implement into your next base:
Secret Underwater Airlock Entrance
One of the most important aspects of any good Minecraft base is a secret enterence so well hidden that you can trust your precious loot is safe. That’s for defence if you’re playing multi-player, or for aesthetic purposes, if you’re in single-player Survival or Hardcore mode.
This idea for an Underwater Airlock by YouTuber Stormfrenzy is one of the most impressive underwater secret doors I have ever seen. It is made possible by the unique water mechanics of the Minecraft Update Aquatic. For a concept this well-executed, the redstone magic behind the scenes is not even that complicated.
Essentially, the idea uses waterlogged trapdoors to turn on and off the flow of water inside the airlock. When the doors seal, the switch changes the trapdoors to their ‘off’ position, effectively draining the whole airlock of water and opening the hatch to let you walk in your secret base.
Automatic Micro-Farms
As you have already seen, in player-versus-player or faction multi-player servers, huge, expansive bases often aren’t the smartest idea. They’re hard to defend, they often have a lot of empty space, and frankly, they’re the opposite of inconspicuous.
But that doesn’t change the fact that automatic farms are essential in all manner of game modes. So, how do you go about fitting an automatic farm – essentially to the rapid production of food necessary to maintain a hungry faction – inside a small, often underground base of operations?
This automatic micro-farm tutorial by OMGcraft may have the solution to that very problem. Using hoppers, dispensers, minecarts, and a bunch of other mechanics you would never expect, these micro-farms allow you to quickly produce a wide array of crops and livestock – while keeping your base vaguely defensible.
Mob Farm
It’s not just farm materials you will need to get ahead in a survival or multi-player world, though. You’re also going to need a steady supply of mobs to slay to harvest their all-important items: gunpowder, bones (for farming), ender pearls, and those enchanted zombie drops.
Luckily, YouTuber Voltrox has come in clutch with an essential Zombie, Creeper, Skeleton farm tutorial that makes it easier than ever to get the benefits of a mob spawner in your own Minecraft base.
Unfortunately, unless you’re planning on installing it underground, this design is likely to put a huge unsightly tower in the middle of your base. This is doubly true if you’ve taken away the idea from this list that it is important to have a sense of subtly in your designing. For this reason, it may be best to take the tutorial for inspiration and have it set up underground.
Automatic Smelter and Item Sorters
Of course, it’s called Minecraft for a reason. Mining is supposed to be a lot of fun!
Dealing with all the stuff you find when you climb out of the mine, however, is often a massive pain. Luckily, many top-of-the-line Minecraft base will have redstone automation to do it all for you – and now you can too!
This Minecraft Super Smelter Tutorial by Mysticat is outrageously simple, so much so that there is absolutely no need for anything but an extremely rudimentary understanding of redstone circuitry.
You could even have the super smelter attached to an automated system of Minecart tracks. This means that you could be smelting all your iron and gold as soon as it is out the ground.
But that’s not all. When you’ve built a top-of-the-line Minecraft base with an automatic super smelter, you are going to also need some convenience contraptions to make item organisation automatic as well. Luckily, Mysticat has a simple tutorial for that, too.
This device is essentially a sequence of water-powered conveyer belts and redstone-powered hoppers which carry all your smelted ores and drop them into their corresponding chest. It even has an escape hatch for any items that accidentally find their way into your system.
Together, these contraptions amount to what is essentially a fully automated Minecraft mining system. It’ll take some time to set up, but this is surely one of the coolest contraptions you could build inside your survival or faction bases.
Completely Unbreakable Walls
Okay, getting this thing built and working in a vanilla Minecraft survival server may be a bit of a push. Nevertheless, it is possible and will be incredible for anyone looking to build a base that enemy factions simply cannot break into!
This tutorial by YouTuber Mumbo Jumbo isn’t entirely comprehensive, but it shows off how such a contraption would work. Essentially, several layers of cobblestone generators underground are tied together with redstone circuitry and directed by pistons.
In turn, this creates a steady stream of new blocks to immediately fill any holes your pesky adversaries mine in your defences – even if they have the best enchantments in the game.
Matched with a secret entrance, the unbreakable cobblestone wall could be a valuable addition to any Player-versus-Player base design. It could conceivably be the ultimate defence to an entirely self-sustaining, siege-repellent base of operations.
Conclusion
We’ve come a long way since the days of dirt safety cubes and wooden plank monstrosities. Hopefully, after reading through this list, you will have a few ideas as to how to spice up your next Minecraft survival base. You might even get a leg-up in your favorite Factions and Player-versus-Player servers.
Be it by conserving space with a multi-layered farm or by building your next factions base underwater, Minecraft is a whole lot more fun when you have a great place to hang out with your friends. Some of these Minecraft base ideas don’t just look great, they are a blast to build, too.
And when you and your friends are hard at work on your next base of operations, or when you’re looking for your next redstone contraption to work out, perhaps you will find some inspiration from the latter part of our list – some of the best Minecraft base entrance, exit, and utility contraptions out there.
Like what we’ve got listed here? Do you have a brilliant idea that we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below!
Looking for something new to fill your lockdown weekends? Why not check out our list of the Best PS4 Games for Girls in 2021!
