Update 2022-03-31: Owen Jacobson has written a lovely companion to this piece which covers new dynamics in update 5.

With apologies, as usual, to Christopher Alexander.

Satisfactory is a first-person factory construction game. COVID-19 has given me license to spend FAR too much time playing it, and I’d like to share a few thoughts that I hope might prove useful, or at least interesting.

This is the house I grew up in. It was particularly challenging to render in one-meter increments, especially while preserving the positions of walls and staircases. The entire structure wanted to shift around in various dimensions; a tension which is only partly resolved by resizing the stair and kitchen.

I chose a site on a hill, facing west; echoing the original lot.

Violating every principle of book conservation, CELL is a library designed to evoke the impermanence and chaos of cellular biology.

CELL is situated in the middle of a marsh (intercellular matrix); readers arrive by boat to any of four landings (alpha-hemolysin complexes).

Typically my taste in architecture is functional, spartan, and modern–but there’s a great deal to be said for “A Pattern Language”. As I approach the end of the book, I’ve started to question, apply, and practice these patterns in Minecraft structures. This structure is a cabin for a small family or group of friends.

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