Modular VS Monolithic Building
This is a topic I've been thinking about with the end of Hermitcraft season 10. I'm not referring to visual styles, but planning/process styles. Its how a builder might approach large projects.
Modular building involves adding smaller parts (or modules) as you go. Each module is complete on its own and they offer a versatile and expanding nature to a project. You don't need to have a complete plan when you start because you only are taking it one part at a time. You can keep adding more and more; the project is only 'done' when you decide to stop.
GoodtimeswithScar approaches his bases with a modular building model. When working on Scarland, he had ideas for an entire park, so he claimed an appropriate amount of land, but he did not layout the whole park from the start, nor did he have concrete plans for all areas of the park. Instead, he focused on completing sections.
First, he completed Main Street.
Then he did the castle and its terraforming.
From there he expanded into the park entrance and Adventure Land.
Looking back, I feel Scar was picking which sections of the park to work on first based on their importance to the project as a whole. Main Street is the spine of the park, the center that all the other pieces connected into. Next was the castle because it was meant to be an iconic central landmark. And so on.
I remember during season 9, I was anxious about him getting to the entire park. It felt like an impossible amount of work. Especially with the level of detail he was giving every building and bush.
But I was thinking about his base all wrong and that became apparent to me during season 10 when I saw the same 'problems' forming.
Before Scar even started working on his zoo, he built his 'starter' base, the zoo train. Trains, by nature, are designed to be modular. They are a series of connected cars and you can add or take away cars as needed. Each of the cars in Scar's zoo train are unique, detailed, and you could take away any single car (aside from the engine) and the rest of the train would continue to function because they aren't dependent on each other to look complete.
That same approach was brought into the zoo proper. Scar didn't intend to make an exhibit for every single mob in the game. Instead, he crafted each exhibit with care and atmosphere, one at a time, in such a way that no matter when the season ended, the zoo would feel immersive and full.
Over in hardcore single player, fWhip has a similar approach to his world. He's building an interconnected fantasy world and there is no 'end point'. Instead, his world is an ever expanding series of miniature stories and worldbuilding. I think his city of Path demonstrates his modular building the best. Most buildings have a story: a butchers, a glass factory, a food stand, rather than being nondescript houses to fill space. He plans out basic layouts and roughs out designs in creative, but each video covers a piece of the puzzle, breaking up what would be an impossibly long city project into manageable bites.
As a side note, I love that fWhip doesn't have a central storage system. Instead he has a series of smaller type-based storage rooms all across his world, meant to encourage him to experience his builds.
Monolithic building involves a full and complete vision for a project and tackles said project as a whole. It has a clearly define start and end goal, and isn't designed to scale up or down. This is great for people who want to avoid scope creep. Or perhaps for something like an adventure map, where a linear way through the world might be prioritized over an open world.
ImpulseSV and Bdubs' Cyberpunk city in season 10 has many monolithic elements in its design. They built a wall around the city, clearly defining the scale of the project from the start. It was conceptualized as a game map, so it needed a bounding box with a clear starting position.
Because of the lack of scaling in monolithic projects though, time constraints can affect the level of detail someone can put into a project. Bdubs and Impulse rushed to fill in the space they marked out by the end of the season because otherwise, it would look incomplete.
Another hardcore single player, Jamal (he was Joe's guest during the hc season 10 guest tour), uses a monolithic approach to his projects and it works quite well for him because he doesn't have the same kind of time constraints.
Jamal's desert city project took him years to complete, but he had the complete layout for all 197 houses set up before he built a single one. AND he did interiors for all of these houses.
It is worth noting that most people use a blend of these two styles. Building a wall and roads for a city before building the city? That's monolithic. Mixing and matching various visual elements so you can build a cohesive city but scale the houses up or down without losing the intended aesthetic? (Shovel uses this technique a lot) That's modular. And you can use both of those techniques for the same project.
I think which approach someone consciously takes for a project will depend on a combination of personal taste, time constraints, and intended goals.
