How to build Japanese Minka Farmhouse in Minecraft

A traditional Japanese minka farmhouse, built around a towering thatched roof. The steep irimoya roof (hipped below, gabled at the top with a lattice smoke vent) sits on a dark wooden skirt roof that shelters an engawa veranda, and its ridge is capped with a dark beam, crossed ridge sticks and a strip of moss and irises. Below it a dark timber frame holds white plaster and rows of shoji screens, a few slid open onto tatami rooms. Inside: a sunken irori hearth with a pot hook, a guest room with a tokonoma alcove, and an earthen-floored doma kitchen with a clay stove, water jar, firewood and straw. Outside: a koi pond with an arched drum bridge, stone lanterns, a raked dry stone garden, cherry trees and a pine, a stepping-stone path from a roofed gate in a bamboo-style fence, and a flooded rice paddy with a scarecrow.

• DifficultyIntermediate
• Size55 × 51, 26 layers tall
• Blocks6,920
• Build time5–7 hours
• CategoryHouses

Open the interactive 3D plan above to build it one layer at a time: every layer has a numbered top-down plan, a block list and full-screen step-by-step instructions you can tick off as you go. You can also download it for Litematica, WorldEdit or Minecraft Bedrock, or view it in your room in AR.

Materials list

Building tips

1. Build the roof as rings: each ring of hay bales steps in one block and up one or two blocks, so it climbs steeply. Stop stepping in from the ends after a few rings and keep going straight up: that vertical end is the gable of an irimoya roof. Fill it with dark wood and a fence-block lattice for the smoke vent.
2. The dark skirt roof is a ring of spruce stairs around the house at a gentler pitch, under the thatch. Two pitches, two materials: that kink is what makes it read as Japanese and not as a haystack.
3. Raise the floor one block on stone footings under the posts and leave the space below open. The shadow line under the floor and the engawa makes the whole house look light.
4. Shoji are white stained glass panes between dark oak posts. Leave a couple of bays open so you can see the tatami inside, and put a flat stepping stone below the open bay.
5. The irori is a 3×3 pit in the floor framed with dark oak, sand in the bottom and a fire in the middle. Fire spreads to wood in the real game, so use a campfire there instead and keep the roof well above it.
6. Koi are tropical fish (or orange and white blocks on the pond floor). Rice paddies are rows of water between rows of moss with saplings or wheat; edge them with dirt path bunds.

Step-by-step: all 26 layers

1. Layer 1 Dirt ×148, Gravel ×84, Sand ×41
2. Layer 2 Dirt ×148, Water ×117, Orange Concrete ×4, White Concrete ×3, Red Concrete ×1
3. Layer 3 Grass Block ×1994, Water ×246, Moss Block ×120, Gravel ×113, Dirt Path ×105, Polished Andesite ×96, Light Gray Concrete ×66, Stone ×41, Smooth Stone ×24
4. Layer 4 Birch Fence ×201, Oak Sapling ×100, Dirt Path ×66, Dark Oak Log ×31, Spruce Log ×16, Dark Oak Planks ×12, Stone ×11, Smooth Stone ×10, Sand ×9, Acacia Slab ×8, Cobblestone ×8, Mossy Cobblestone ×8, Polished Andesite ×5, Acacia Fence ×4, Andesite ×3, Cherry Log ×3, Moss Block ×2, Oak Fence ×1, Water ×1
5. Layer 5 Spruce Planks ×129, Dark Oak Planks ×69, Spruce Slab ×64, Birch Fence ×50, Dark Oak Log ×18, Spruce Log ×17, Acacia Slab ×8, White Terracotta ×6, Stone Brick Wall ×5, Acacia Fence ×4, Hay Bale ×4, Brown Terracotta ×3, Cherry Log ×3, Furnace ×2, Spruce Fence ×2, Stone ×2, Chest ×1, Crafting Table ×1, Fire ×1, Oak Fence ×1, Water ×1
6. Layer 6 Green Carpet ×70, Dark Oak Log ×32, Dark Oak Planks ×24, Black Carpet ×21, White Stained Glass Pane ×14, Acacia Fence ×8, Red Carpet ×8, Spruce Log ×8, Lantern ×7, Acacia Slab ×6, White Wool ×6, Dark Oak Slab ×5, Cherry Log ×4, Polished Blackstone ×3, Hay Bale ×2, Oak Fence ×2, Spruce Fence ×2, Chest ×1, Stone ×1
7. Layer 7 Dark Oak Log ×32, Cherry Leaves ×21, White Stained Glass Pane ×14, Spruce Fence ×12, White Concrete ×10, White Wool ×8, Acacia Fence ×6, Stone Brick Slab ×5, Blue Wool ×4, Cherry Log ×4, Spruce Log ×4, Spruce Slab ×3, Dark Oak Planks ×2, Lantern ×2, Cornflower ×1, Iron Bars ×1
8. Layer 8 Cherry Leaves ×99, Spruce Leaves ×74, Dark Oak Log ×30, White Concrete ×14, White Stained Glass Pane ×14, Spruce Fence ×12, Dark Oak Planks ×9, White Wool ×7, Stone Brick Wall ×5, Hay Bale ×1, Iron Bars ×1, Spruce Log ×1
9. Layer 9 Cherry Leaves ×183, Dark Oak Log ×30, Dark Oak Fence ×29, White Concrete ×26, Spruce Leaves ×21, Spruce Stairs ×18, Spruce Slab ×9, Spruce Log ×3, Lantern ×2, Iron Bars ×1
10. Layer 10 Cherry Leaves ×195, Spruce Stairs ×90, Dark Oak Planks ×50, Spruce Leaves ×36, Dark Oak Log ×24, Dark Oak Slab ×6, Lantern ×5, Iron Bars ×1
11. Layer 11 Cherry Leaves ×135, Dark Oak Log ×89, Spruce Stairs ×82, Hay Bale ×74, White Concrete ×44, Spruce Leaves ×3, Iron Bars ×1
12. Layer 12 Hay Bale ×74, White Concrete ×44, Cherry Leaves ×42, Dark Oak Log ×42
13. Layer 13 Hay Bale ×74, White Concrete ×44, Dark Oak Log ×22
14. Layer 14 Hay Bale ×66
15. Layer 15 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Planks ×10, Spruce Planks ×8
16. Layer 16 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Planks ×10, Spruce Planks ×8
17. Layer 17 Hay Bale ×40, Spruce Planks ×8, Dark Oak Planks ×6
18. Layer 18 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Planks ×6, Spruce Planks ×4
19. Layer 19 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Planks ×6, Spruce Planks ×4
20. Layer 20 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Fence ×6
21. Layer 21 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Fence ×2
22. Layer 22 Hay Bale ×40, Dark Oak Fence ×2
23. Layer 23 Hay Bale ×20
24. Layer 24 Dark Oak Planks ×22, Dark Oak Fence ×12
25. Layer 25 Moss Block ×20, Dark Oak Fence ×14
26. Layer 26 Cornflower ×6

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