Village mechanics

The player is capable of founding or creating a new village by "transplanting" villagers from an existing village, as long as the following conditions are met:


 * Must be at least 40 blocks from the "boundary" of the existing village, or else villagers will simply return to the village.
 * There must be homes at the new village, or else the villagers will simply wander.

As a villager cannot be manually pushed far past the boundary of the village, a common method for transplanting villagers from an older town to a newer one is placing tracks, and pushing the villagers into minecarts - they will simply sit in the minecart and not react to the village border as they pass it, until they are removed from the cart. It is often helpful, but not required, to place the doors of the homes after the arrival of the villagers to speed detection. You can also simply destroy all the doors in the villages which will remove the boundary.

Underwater player-made villages
The player can make villages under things, such as platforms and water. However, for every door, at least one space within 5 blocks of the door must be able to "see the sky" all the way up to the top of the map, i.e. have nothing but air or transparent blocks above it.

House designs
Key: @ Log    ^ Glass Pane     | Shared Wall
 * 1) Wood    + Door           Empty space

Log Cabin
Incredibly simple, efficient, and quick to build. They can also be expanded or minimized in multiple variations, but requires some work to stack them. Summary: 44.25 logs (including wood for doors); 6 doors; 2.01 villagers 3 width; 5 length; 3 height 7.316 logs per villager; 0.125625 villagers/m2; 0.041875 villagers/m3

Scrooge
Bare-bones, high-density design. Summary: 16 logs (including wood for doors); 6 doors; 2.01 villagers 5 width; 4 length; 3 height 7.619 logs per villager; 0.105000 villagers/m2; 0.033500 villagers/m3

Less miserly variant with more style. Summary: 34.5 logs; 6 doors; 2.1 villagers; 5 width; 4 length; 3 height; 16.429 logs per villager; 0.105000 villagers/m2; 0.035000 villagers/m3

Turbo Scrooge
Based on Scrooge, slightly more efficient. Summary: 20.25 logs; 8 doors; 2.8 villagers; 5 width; 5 length; 3 height; 7.5 logs per villager; 0.112000 villagers/m2; 0.037333 villagers/m3

Simple house
This house is recommended for a newbie because of its simplicity and the fact that it's easy to remember, however, it is very expensive and inefficient. summary: 47.50 logs; 1 door; 0.35 villagers; 5 width; 8 length; 4 height; 16.625 logs per villager; 0.014 villagers/m2; 0.004167 villagers/m3;

Condos
A small and cramped house, but with some efficiency as it can easily be stacked and placed in an endless row. Logs per villager can be improved by using planks instead of logs, or by excluding the roof over the outside of the door. This will restrict vertical stacking, unless the top condo is reversed so the back of the top condo is the roof over the door of the bottom condo and the back of the bottom condo is the walk way. Vertical stacking will also improve resource efficiency by adding a third shared wall.

Summary(alone): 21.5 logs; 1 doors; 0.35 villagers; 3 width; 4 length; 3 height; 61.43 logs per villager; 0.029166 villagers/m2; 0.009722 villagers/m3 Summary(two shared walls): 12 logs; 1 doors; 0.35 villagers; 3 width; 4 length; 3 height; 34.29 logs per villager; 0.043750 villagers/m2; 0.014583 villagers/m3

Apartment
Can be stacked and placed in a row to make an apartment building. Make sure there is at least one air space between parallel buildings. Summary: 18 logs; 4 doors; 1.4 villagers; 5 width; 6 length; 3 height; 12.857 logs per villager; 0.058 villagers/m2 * floor; 0.0194 villagers/m3

View of an apartment complex using this pattern.

NPC Village designs
An incomplete list of the houses and buildings in a NPC village and their respective designs can be found at the Village Blueprints Project page.