Civilization101Blueprint

Shelter & Architecture

Hypothermia kills in hours, so the first shelter is a small, insulated hut or lean-to. The second is a house that lasts thirty years, built from the subsoil, stone or timber on the site. Earth buildings fail from water, not load: a stone plinth 0.30–0.45 m high and eaves of 0.45–0.60 m are the defences. Smoke from open fires indoors kills an estimated 2.9 million people a year (WHO, 2021), so a chimney is a safety device before it is a comfort. Above level 1, building depends on brick, lime, glass and cement, which are cross-listed from Materials & Chemistry so the whole cascade reads in one place.
8 steps + 6 cross-listed 16 field guides 9 builds 16 reference sheets 74 books and archives

Tracks

Each track is one line of development climbing the eight levels. A cell holds the step written at that level; cross-listed steps have their home in another sector and are shown here because this subject depends on them. Dashed cells are planned and not yet written; blank ones have nothing planned.

Emergency and temporary shelter

The first nights: off the ground, out of the wind, and dry.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-shelter Shelter and body heat Guide ×2Sheet ×11 4 options by what you have →
Level 1: nothing planned
Level 2: nothing planned
Level 3: nothing planned
Level 4: nothing planned
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Dwellings

The same need at every level — dry, standing, warm and free of smoke — met with better materials and more people.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
t1-dwelling Plan the house: sun, air, smoke and damp Guide t1-shelter Permanent shelter Guide ×3Build ×4Sheet ×11 6 options by what you have →
t2-masonry Masonry house and chimney GuideBuildSheet ×10
t3-frame Framed and glazed building Guide ×4Sheet ×10
t4-ironframe Iron-framed and multi-storey building Guide
t5-concrete Steel frame and reinforced concrete Guide
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Storage and farm buildings

Keeping the harvest, the animals and the tools dry and free of rats: granaries and cellars first, then barns and cold stores.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
t1-preserve Preserve the harvest Guide ×4Build ×2Sheet ×4 Home: Food
t2-barn Barn and byre
Level 3: nothing planned
t4-cold Refrigeration and the cold chain Guide Home: Food
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Building materials

Brick, lime, cement and glass make building permanent. Their primary home is Materials & Chemistry; they are listed here so the building cascade can be read in one place.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
Level 1: nothing planned
t2-brick Brick and tile Guide ×3Build ×3Sheet ×10 Home: Materials t2-lime Lime Guide ×6Build ×2Sheet ×10 Home: Materials
t3-cement Cement and concrete Guide ×4BuildSheet ×10 Home: Materials t3-glass Glass Guide ×2Build ×2 Home: Materials
Level 4: nothing planned
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Everything in Shelter & Architecture

Gathered from the steps above: the guides and builds that serve them, the reference sheets those carry, and every book the steps, guides and builds cite.

Field guides

Level 0
Rope, knots and lashings

A dozen knots cover almost everything. Two of the most familiar ones — the reef knot and the granny — have killed people who used them for the one job they cannot do.

 Level 1
Stone and earth building

How to build a dwelling that stays dry and standing for thirty years from subsoil, stone and timber: choosing the method, setting out, foundations, walls, roof, drainage, and how to inspect, repair and maintain it.

 Level 3
Engineering

Turning the sciences into things that work: machines, structures, water in pipes and channels, heat through walls, and feedback control. Each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 1
Wood and the forest

The forest is the first material store, the first fuel supply and the first thing a group kills itself cutting down. Managed, it is also the only one of the three that grows back.

 Level 3
Properties of materials

Density, stiffness, expansion and melting point for the materials the ladder makes, and what each number decides.

 Level 0
Fish and water foods

The highest calorie-return food source available to a group with nothing — and the one most often worked in the least productive way.

 Level 1
Food preservation

A glut eaten in the week it arrives is a feast. The same glut dried, salted, fermented or cellared is the difference between March and a famine.

 Level 3
Micro-organisms

The two dozen that decide who lives where there is no doctor: what each does, how it spreads, what kills it and which step stops it.

 Level 3
Biology

Life from the cell up: the human body, microbes and immunity, inheritance and epidemics. Each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 3
Physics

Force, energy, heat, light, electricity, relativity and the atom: the laws every engine, wire and lens obeys, each with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 1
Clay and firing

Fired clay is the first material a group makes that does not exist in nature: a rock with a shape you chose. Getting there is mostly patience — in the drying, and in the heating.

 Level 2
Lime

Burn a rock, add water, and it turns back into rock in the shape you gave it. Mortar, plaster, whitewash, soap and tanning all start there — and so does an alkali burn that can blind in seconds.

 Level 1
Poisons

The poisonings a rebuilding community is most likely to meet: where each comes from, how it shows, and the first thing to do.

 Level 2
Minerals and ores

How to tell the ores that matter with nothing but a streak plate, a knife and your hand: colour lies, streak and weight do not.

 Level 1
Soils and plant nutrition

What a soil is made of, why its acidity matters, and how to read a nutrient shortage in the leaves before it costs a harvest.

 Level 3
Chemistry

What matter is made of and how it changes: amounts, gases, acids, the energy and speed of reactions, electrochemistry, and the reactions every industry on the ladder runs on.

Builds

A single-storey adobe house in Romania at roof stage, before plastering. Sun-dried blocks laid in running bond, small openings with timber lintels, and a timber wall plate along the wall tops carrying the roof.
Level 1
One-room earth house

Sun-dried earth blocks on a stone plinth under a thatched roof, 4.0 × 3.6 m inside — the worked example for the building guide, from pegs in the ground to the first winter.
A Rumford fireplace: tall, shallow firebox with sides splayed outward, which throws radiant heat into the room and leads the smoke smoothly into a narrow throat.
Level 2
Fireplace and chimney

A fireplace that throws its heat into the room and a lined flue that takes every trace of smoke out of the house: the part of a house most likely to burn it down or poison the people in it.
A hewn-log cabin on a stone foundation, with a shake roof and projecting eaves. The stones lift the bottom logs clear of the ground and the splash.
Level 1
Log house

Where straight timber grows and there is no clay or stone, the fastest permanent walls an axe can raise: structure, enclosure and insulation in one piece.
Sundanese rice granaries on capped posts. Seed held back is next year's food.
Level 1
Raised granary

Keep a year of grain dry, cool and away from rodents — the single highest-return building on the site.
A turf-roofed stone root cellar built into a slope at Elliston, Newfoundland.
Level 1
Root cellar

Cold, damp and dark, without power — how a harvest survives to the following spring.
An updraught kiln at full firing. Pottery is the first step that needs real temperature control.
Level 1
Updraught kiln

The first machine that holds a temperature — pottery, brick and tile, and the training ground for every furnace above it.
A stone draw kiln cut into a bank — mortar, plaster and clean water all start here.
Level 2
Continuous draw lime kiln

Burn limestone into quicklime — mortar, plaster, whitewash, flux, tannery liquor and soil correction, from one shaft.
A replica of a Leeuwenhoek microscope, about 5 cm tall: the tiny glass lens sits in the hole at the top of the brass plate, the specimen goes on the point just behind it, and the screws move the point to focus. The eye goes right up against the plate.
Level 3
Bead microscope

A glass bead the size of a pinhead magnifies 150–350 times: enough to see yeast, blood cells and the larger bacteria that cause disease.
Galileo's two surviving telescopes, 1609–10, Museo Galileo, Florence: long thin tubes, because a single-lens objective only gives a sharp image at a long focal length and a small aperture.
Level 3
Refracting telescope

Two lenses in a tube: a 1-metre objective and a 25 mm eyepiece give 40×, enough to see Jupiter's moons and the phases of Venus.

Reference sheets

Drawn overview sheets, each with its corrections printed under it. They orient; they are never the thing you identify from.

Where cordage fibre comes from — tree bast, plant stalks and leaves, roots and vines, and animal sinew, hair and rawhide — with the cord each yields and the raw → fibre → cord sequence at the foot.
Natural materials for cordage On: Cordage · Rope, knots and lashings: Splicing: the strongest way to make a loop or a join · Fibre to cloth: The fibres, and what each is for
Twelve panels in order: site, ground preparation, foundation, floor, walls, doors and windows, roof frame, roof covering, eaves and drainage, plaster, a cutaway of the finished house, and a final checklist with ongoing maintenance.
Permanent shelter: the complete construction sequence On: Stone and earth building: The order of work
Ten panels: a safe location, areas to avoid, sun, wind, shade and materials, soil types, slope and drainage, a homestead layout, orientation, clear space round the house, future expansion, and a site checklist.
Site selection and building layout On: Stone and earth building: Choose the site and set it out
Ten panels: why water control matters, eaves, gutters and downspouts, ground slope, drainage options, plinth protection, roof runoff, water management, common mistakes, and a checklist.
Rainwater, eaves and drainage On: Stone and earth building: Where the water goes
Nine panels: the trench, soil types, a gravel layer, the stone foundation, a cross-section, damp-proofing options, plinth and floor level, drainage round the foundation, and three common foundation types.
Foundation and ground moisture protection On: Stone and earth building: Foundations and plinths: the boots
Twelve panels: preparing the ground, the gravel base, the fill layer, surface options, a cross-section, finishes, the door threshold, damp-proofing, floors for different climates, common mistakes, and a checklist.
Floor construction On: Stone and earth building: Floors
Eleven panels: wall materials, adobe, rammed earth and stone masonry, cross-sections, corners and bonding, a thickness guide, openings, plaster, water protection, and common mistakes.
Earth and stone wall construction On: Stone and earth building: Building the walls
Nine panels: a typical door and window, lintel options, how a lintel carries the wall, construction steps for each, opening dimensions, common mistakes, and key checkpoints.
Doors, windows and lintels On: Stone and earth building: Openings, lintels, corners and arches
Eleven panels: roof parts, roof types, pitch and runoff, the frame, construction steps, eaves, the roof-to-wall joint, the ridge, covering details, common mistakes, and checkpoints.
Roof structure and construction On: Stone and earth building: Roofs: the hat
Ten panels: why to plaster, the three coats, material options, surface preparation, application steps, finishes, details and protection, common problems, repairs, and key checkpoints.
Plastering and weather protection On: Stone and earth building: When it goes wrong: diagnosis and repair
A labelled cutaway of the finished house (roof, eaves, walls, foundation, lintels, windows, interior, floor and site), cross-sections of the wall, floor and roof, and an inspection checklist.
Finished shelter: technical cutaway and inspection On: Stone and earth building: Maintenance calendar
Nineteen panels from site to maintenance: choosing the site, materials, tools, an example plan, foundation, floor, three wall systems, laying walls, lintels, the roof frame, coverings, eaves and drainage, plaster, a cutaway house, foundation and corner details, stone bonding, the roof-to-wall joint, drainage and maintenance checks.
Permanent shelter: from site to maintenance On: Permanent shelter
Common freshwater and coastal fish, the water each holds in, the methods and baits that take them, and the handful that are toxic or regulated.
Fish: species, habitats and fishing methods On: Fish and water foods: Read the water first
Ten passive water traps — basket, funnel, weir, V-weir, box, basket weir, lift net, baited cage, stone-and-log, and dammed pool — each with side and top view, bait, and the mechanism that stops an animal leaving.
Trapping: passive capture methods in water On: Fish and water foods: Methods, ranked by return per hour
What a shoreline yields — bivalves, gastropods, crustaceans, echinoderms, seaweeds, intertidal animals and eggs — and where on the shore each of them is found.
Animal and shore foraging On: Forage, trap, fish · Fish and water foods: What is safe to eat — and what will kill you
Shore species to leave alone: toxic shellfish, venomous snails and fish, stinging and spined animals, protected species, and the contamination that makes an otherwise safe species unsafe.
Animal and shore foraging — what to avoid On: Fish and water foods: What is safe to eat — and what will kill you

Books and archives

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