Towers are great ways to show off your building skills while also having plenty of space to hold all your needed crafting tables and beds. So join me as we look at 15 different tower blueprints and building techniques that take advantage of all the new blocks in Minecraft.
1. 8×8 Enchanting Tower
Great for Minecraft Survival, especially if you’re just starting out, and can easily be built on a Minecraft Earth 8×8 build plate.
A video guide is here. Start with stone bricks on the bottom corners, and then use the cobble to start building the walls. Then do some columns in stone bricks on either side of the walls.
Stone brick stairs are used to create palisades around the edge, and then continue building upwards with stone bricks. You then start on the middle section with spruce and finish the gaps with stone bricks. Finish the top with wood, trapdoors, and stone stairs.
2. Survival Tower Base
Using a lot of spruce and oak, this tower is huge and includes many rooms so you can do smelting, storage, crafting, enchanting, bedrooms, farm facilities, and a nether portal.
Start with a torch to mark the center, and make sure you can go at least nine blocks up and out. ItsMarloe explains the rest of the process very well here. After setting the base and making the holes for the water source. Lay down all the farmland first, scaffolding is advised.
Then you’ll be adding the top levels using a combination of spruce stairs, and spruce slabs, and then filling in the gaps with stripped oak, windows, and trapdoors. The top uses some slabs and then oak columns with fences around the edge.
Stone bricks and blocks then get stacked in a way to make the roof structure, filling in with wood. Use oak slabs and stripped spruce to complete the top story.
3. Wizard Tower
Start out with the base as described in this video, and start then going up with stone bricks to make the outline for the walls, which can get filled in with the blocks of your choice while leaving an entrance.
Fill in the corners with stacks of 10 blocks, with walls of 9 blocks. This design has a separate section that has different dimensions to give it a mini keep next to the main tower. Use wooden stairs on the top to create a platform and then build up with stone again.
Complete the floor using wooden slabs and stairs, then use wood columns on top of the slab to create the main structure and fill in. The roof requires a long explanation, so just refer to the video on how to lay the brick slabs in a way to create the wizard hat roof.
After that, a similar process to create the roof on the additional keep.
4. Mage Tower
Using granite and many other block types, this is a great-looking tower straight out of a fantasy movie. The base will be three, five, and seven blocks long based on the initial layout along the diagonal wall as can be seen at the beginning of this guide.
After that, the main walls will be stretched 16 granite blocks high. You’ll need to use temporary blocks during many parts of this build, especially on the corners. Deepslate blocks are used to add structure to the outside, and then add entrances by removing five blocks.
If you want to get creative, you can use amethyst blocks surrounded by stone to give it a magical look. You can create a hole in the middle and put Blackstone and an end crystal to give a beam coming through the middle.
5. Watchtower
Start making a basic tower as per this guide.
Use arrow slit blocks to create viewing ports on each wall about halfway up. Finish with stone up to the top, using stair blocks to finish off the roof. You can also add a simple roof using stripped logs and spruce slabs and spruce stairs.
6. Skyscraper
If you’re looking for something unique, a skyscraper is an awesome choice. You’ll need a fair bit of sand and gravel to make all the glass and stone slabs. Start off with a 19 long by 15 wide slab of terracotta that is one block thick.
The longer side will have all the detail on it. Start off by building an ‘A’ using concrete that is four blocks wide, 27 blocks tall until the crossbar of the ‘A’, which is four blocks tall, on top of which you have 15 blocks until the top of the ‘A’ which is also four blocks tall.
The curves require an in-depth explanation, so check out this video from about the four minutes mark on how to do it.
7. Castle Towers
A great addition to any castle you may have, towers are best built when you scale them properly to the size of your existing castle. Start off with a five by five square of stone and then raise it up by 10 levels per this guide.
8. Open Wizard Tower
This variation allows you to enter and exit from the top floor using elytra. Starting with the entryway, use stone bricks to create the perimeter and then start building up in blocks of six or seven to finish the walls.
Repeat this step if you want a taller tower, and then use a combination of one stone brick and two iron bars on one side, then three iron bars on the other three sides. Repeat again with the wall pattern but you don’t need to put windows on the next level.
The roof is quite elaborate, but build it so there is enough space to put landing platforms for your elytra. Watch the video to get a detailed guide on how to finish the roof.
9. Simple Tower
See this guide for more information on how to do the foundation.
The bone block is one great material to use for the tower on top of the stone foundation, generally, about 15 or so blocks high. Use spruce planks around the top to create a lip, finishing off with wood stairs.
10. Column Tower
While quite difficult, Jeracraft’s guide on Youtube has all the details if you can’t quite follow.
The foundation is a circle consisting of one and two block stretches for the corners and then five-block stretches for the main walls. Leave one of the five-block stretches empty for the entrance.
Raise the tower by a few levels, by matching cobblestone with cobblestone, and stone brick with stone brick, with stone stairs on the outside. Jeracraft goes through all the block heights and widths in the video linked above for the remaining levels.
After that, you can keep going using the oakwood log to create a 21-block high column in groups of three. Use spruce wood fence pieces to complete the wall and the rest of the roof.
11. Block Survival Tower
Starting with a five-by-five base that uses two diagonal blocks in between, this simple yet clean design works great for a survival tower. Start building up with stone blocks, up to a height of 11 on all sides.
On the five-block length sides, you can add supports of two blocks thickness to give the tower a bit more structure. Create the parapets up the top using stone stairs, with stone blocks behind to plug up any gaps.
Finish off with another length of 11-block high columns, filled in with stone and arrow slits or windows. Build out four by one column of stone on the outer edges to make a platform, then finish off with the roof of your choice.
12. Fish Tank Tower
A unique take on an old design, this includes a fish tank taking up about two-thirds of the building. Start with the usual 13 by 13 square glowstone filled in with an internal stone floor and then build an entrance using stripped spruce logs and stone.
After creating a floor for the next stage (the fish tank) using spruce wood, stairs, and spruce fence, lay down the bottom of the fish tank, which will form a ceiling for the first section.
The build also has a ladder going through the middle of the tank, although this does take a lot of extra glass. Whatever you decide to do, build up the glass fish tank and then line the top with spruce wood, mirroring the bottom floor of spruce wood, stairs, and fencing.
13. Medieval Tower with Floating Keep
Start with a circular base that is three-wide on each side, and two sets of two blocks to make the curved edges. Start building up with stone by layering up, leaving a space in the middle for your transport of choice, like a spiral staircase.
Once you’ve completed the main tower, extend out a stone and build a wooden platform on top from one of the top side edges of choice. Use barrels and trapdoors to create a platform, which you can extend down into a pointy stone for aesthetics like Minecraft Fantasy Builds.
Build the floating keep with sandstone and oak trapdoors to your liking.
14. Circular Tower
An option if you want a more spacious tower, circular towers have much larger floor plans, allowing more flexibility with internal design. Start with a six-block wall, followed by a four-block diagonal bookended with two block connecting pieces.
Build up from the six-block wall using six-block high walls. The beginning of this guide by Snow Architecture has this foundation in great detail in video form. Build-in some large windows four blocks wide.
Start the first-floor using birch planks, and you may even choose to add glass blocks in the middle to create a central fish tank. Continue up with wood on the base to your desired height, using stairs on the outside to maintain access.
15. Pointy / Gnome Tower
When making a tower that is going to have a very steep roof, it’s best to make a foundation that leads to a single-center block as per andyisyoda’s tips and tricks video here.
Start with a one-by-one block staircase emanating about 10 blocks from the center square, so that it is thick at the bottom but converges towards the center. Then start extending the center column up by about five to 10 blocks to create the center spire.
