Hi Prodigy,
Thanks for completing your challenge build! Here's a little feedback on it:
- The roof style is strange for Whiteharbour. Most roofs have a 75 degree pitch, and yours is 45 degrees with an overhang. I’d suggest you pay a little more attention to neighbouring builds. I assume you wanted to do something a little more unique, for your build, but the typical house style, is that way for a reason. The steeped pitch of the roofs stops snow collecting and weighing them down.
- Your palette could do with some work on the exterior walls. There’s plaster beside full white bricks, rather than a gradual transition between areas of wear and tear. Have a closer look at some of the surrounding buildings in the area for some inspiration.
- The large plate glass windows at the front are a little bit much. Glass was incredibly expensive and should be used very sparingly.
- Inside, you’ve used spruce slabs as rafters for your building, but this can be better achieved by using upturned stair and slab blocks to create both the upper floor, and the rafters beneath. Take a look at the ceilings in houses in Fairmarket for good examples of this.
- When using cabinet and bench blocks, make sure that only the front side is visible; you can cover the other sides by using other full blocks, or half-door blocks.
- Your ground floor should be a dirt/gravel mix, or a stone mix, rather than wood. It looks less interesting, and makes the house feel a bit strange, and means you have to contend with a wooden floor around a fireplace (which is obviously dangerous).
- For your workshop, you could do with some vats of tallow, and some rope, with a work surface. At the moment you wouldn’t be able to tell from the interiors that this is a chandlers.
- I understand your reasoning behind a large open area, but it’s unlikely that any house in Whiteharbour would have open-plan living. If the family are wealthy enough to have parties, the house would have an entertaining hall in the front, and nothing too ostentatious. Having an open plan kitchen just seems very strange in a medieval house.
- In your bedroom, the ceiling has no supports, and the small glass windows are odd looking. Make sure to look at the windows in Whiteharbour and make sure you follow the style. Even some manses in Whiteharbour don’t have plate glass windows in every room.
- Lanterns are also very expensive, and really shouldn’t be employed in private houses, especially in the bedroom. Candles would suffice.
I think you should take a look at some of the living and working spaces throughout the larger towns and cities and see how people lived and used space during the medieval period. Fairmarket is a great example of structural design, and you can see great examples of flooring, ceilings, roof-building, and rafters. Bitterbridge gives a great example of merchant lifestyle, with it’s great industry along the river. Finally, King’s Landing has wonderful examples of how to use the space within small buildings, for both residential and business purposes.
Despite all of the above, this isn’t a terrible build! It’s a great start!
For your second challenge, please build a middle-class house in the style of Woodwright. These are the houses with slate roofs.
Good Luck!
