Packable Building Guide
This is a guide for making buildings for macro cities which can be packed into large standard-sized checked bags, and easily built back up at cons. These designs call for simple rectangular buildings, with painted sides, and windows made from metallic duct tape. Of course, feel free to modify however you wish!
Standard large checked bags usually have interior dimensions of around 26" x 18" x 12", but you should check the bags you plan to use to be sure. The examples in this article will assume a bag of these dimensions.
General Building Design[edit | edit source]
Buildings are constructed from several stacked sections of cardboard boxes, with a cardboard roof on top. These sections can be folded up into a flat layers that fit within a suitcase, and the flat roof can lay on top.
Each section is painted with a solid base color, then metallic duct tape is laid across to create a row or column of windows. Spray paint, acrylic craft paint, or even tempura paint can be used. I recommend using acrylic craft paint and foam rollers, because:
- It is relatively cheap.
- It comes in several pre-mixed colors, which means you don't need to worry about consistently mixing a specific shade if you need multiple coats or run out of paint halfway through.
- It's easy to make touch ups with, compared to spray paint.
If you want to be fancy, you could get a second color, close to the first, and apply it lightly with a sponge or dry brush to give additional texture.
Optionally, the window tape can be lightly scored, and sections peeled off, to create separate windows. If the duct tape is initially applied lightly, it should come off without removing any paint.
The building sections are joined with corner flaps made from ~2"x2" pieces of cardboard folded at right angles into the corners. These are glued in place during the pre-assembly phase at the cons, into the bottom of the sections to be joined. Gorilla Glue Dots are an excellent choice for this - they are surprisingly strong, easy to place, and adhere instantly!
It is not necessary to glue the flaps to the upper section; If the flaps are adhered strongly to the bottom section, then the top section will simply friction fit against the corner flaps.
To ensure that the building maintains it's rectangular shape and does not try to fold itself into a diamond shape ("diamonding"), you can:
- Make right angle supports out of cardboard and place into the inner corners of each section.
- This may be simpler and use less cardboard, but you will need to apply these during the Final Assembly phase. It may take some time to affix these
- Make flat cardboard rectangles the size and shape of the building footprint (Building footprint pieces), and tape to the inside of each section
- Since these will not be seen, you can make a large cardboard piece by taping together two smaller pieces with duct tape, taping along the seam on both sides. The resulting piece will be surprisingly rigid! This is a great way to make use of box flaps.
The rooftop is made from two layers of cardboard. The bottom layer is the same size and shape as the building footprint. The top layer is similar, but slightly larger, so as to create a small overhang around the top of the building. The bottom layer creates a friction fit with the upper section and prevents diamonding, and the top layer ensures that the roof does not fall into the building. The top layer should be painted as desired, and can optionally be decorated with paint (during initial construction) or small props (during final assembly).
Design Considerations[edit | edit source]
Buildings must be designed and built so that they can be packed flat into a standard checked bag. Obviously a tall building cannot simply be folded flat and put into a suitcase. Instead, it must be cut into sections, each of which can fold flat inside the suitcase, and those sections must be able to be assembled simply and quickly at a convention.
The construction of a finished building is divided into three phases:
- Initial Construction - This phase is done before the con, and all products of this phase must fit inside a suitcase. This includes steps like cutting, painting, and making window decorations for building sections.
- Pre-Assembly - This phase takes place at the con, several hours or days before the meet or event. The products of this phase are buildings that are mostly constructed, but can still be mostly-flattened for ease of transportation to the final event space. This includes steps like affixing section joining flaps, joining section pieces, and joining sections together.
- Final Assembly - This phase takes place at the meet / event space during event setup, and produces fully assembled, freestanding buildings. You should plan to make this phase as quick and easy as possible. This include steps like "inflating" the building, installing supports to prevent diamonding, and putting on the roof and final decorations.
If you have access to a storage closet near the event space and/or a large trolly/cart, you may be able to combine the Final Assembly and Pre Assembly phases into one assembly phase, long before the event, creating finished buildings that you simply need to move into the event room during event setup. If possible, this is ideal, and may simplify some aspects of construction! But for maximum flexibility, this document will assume that these are distinct phases.
Detailed design considerations, tips, and techniques will be explored through the examples below.
Example Design - 12 x 12 Tower[edit | edit source]
Note: Step-By-Step instructions and pictures can be found here !
Initial Construction[edit | edit source]
This simple design consists of three (or more) 12" x 12" x 12" sections stacked atop each other to create a 12" x 12" x 36" tower. Uhaul Book Boxes are excellent for making this design, as they are already 12" x 12" x 12" and so are nearly already built for you! Simply cut off the top and bottom flaps, and you have a section built up!
This section can already be placed in the suitcase as is! When folded flat, it creates a flat 24" x 12" rectangle, easily within our bounds.
For painting and taping, it may be easiest to completely unfold the box. One corner of the box will be folded and glued - use a sharp craft knife to cut between the layers, then unfold. Try to leave as much of the flap intact as possible, as we want to use it later to glue the box back together. If you can't, then you can construct a new flap from thick cardstock taped to the inside faces of the box.
Once unfolded, you can paint the box and tape the window rows with the box completely flat. Then tape/glue the flap back together (or wait until the Pre Assembly step).
Construct the roof using a piece of cardboard the same size as the building footprint (12" x 12"), and another about 1/8" larger in each direction. Glue these pieces together and paint the top piece to match the building color.
Cut out also 1 Building footprint piece for each section - 3 total.
The thickness of each piece of cardboard is around 1/8". Thus when folded over, each section is ~1/4" thick. The rooftop also consists of two pieces of carboard, so is also ~1/4" thick. The 3 building footprints add another 3/8". Altogether, the 3 sections, footprints, and the rooftop create a stack of cardboard ~1 3/8" thick when packed.
If you were making only these 3-section 12 x 12 towers, you could fit about 12 of them in a standard suitcase (with room to spare around the edges)!
Other things to build / bring:
- 4x Section-joining corner flaps for each section beyond the first (8 total)
- 2x Gorilla Glue dots per flap (16 total), or some other affixing method
- 1x Building footprint piece for each section (3 total)
Total time estimate: 2 hours 25 minutes active time (plus 6 hours inactive time)
- Make section: 130 min; x3 sections => 120/390 min => 2 hours active time (plus 4 hours, 30 min inactive time)
- Active time: 40 min
- Box cutting: 5 min
- Painting: 10 min/coat; x2 coats => 20 min
- Tape windows: 2 min/strip; x4 strips => ~10 min
- Cut building footprint piece: 5 min
- Inactive time: 90 min
- Paint Dry time*: 45 min/coat; x2 coats => 90 min
- Active time: 40 min
- Make corner flaps: 1min; x8 flaps => 8 min
- Cut time: 1 min.
- Make roof: 17/90 min => 17 minutes active time (plus 1.5 hours inactive time)
- Active time: 17 min
- Cut footprint piece: 5 min
- Measure and cut top overlap piece: 10 min
- Paint top piece: 1 min/coat; x2 coats => 2 min
- Inactive time: 90 min
- Paint Dry Time: 45 min/coat; x2 coats => 90 min
- Active time: 17 min
Pre Assembly[edit | edit source]
Perform the following steps for each section:
- Unfold and "inflate" the section into its rectangular shape.
- Fit footprint piece into the section by pushing in from above, allowing the tabs to bend upward. Tape/glue one tab to the inner side wall (preferably along the longer building side if uneven). Keep the other tabs unglued for now (this allows it to fold flat for transport)
- For each section but the top one, affix joining corner flaps into each corner, extending halfway above the top of the section. Get the corner of the flaps as deep into the box corner as possible. If using glue dots, affix glue dots to the outside of the flap first, fold nearly flat, push the corner into the inside corner of the box, then fold the flap out toward the box walls, joining them with the glue dot.
Perform a test fit, adjusting as necessary:
- Stack each section on the other, friction fitting each section onto the joining flaps of the one below. If any flaps are loose and a good fit isn't formed, adjust the corner flaps with more tape or glue. (Adjusting is rarely necessary when using Gorilla Glue Dots!)
- Test friction fit of roof into the top section piece, adding some tape or other material around the bottom piece if the fit is too loose. (Tape should only be used to add material to increase friction, not to tape the roof to the section below)
Once everything fits, take the roof and sections apart and flatten everything. The interior footprint pieces should fold flat against one of the interior sides. The sections will not flatten quite as well as before, as the corner joining flaps and interior footprint pieces add some new mass in the middle, just be gentle.
Total time estimate: 5-10 min
Final Assembly[edit | edit source]
Once at the event space, assemble as follows:
- For each section, unfold the section and adjust the inner footprint piece to make the section keep its shape.
- Optionally, you can tape the remaining tabs to ensure the sections will stay rectangular when the building is toppled (it may be more fun for fursuiters to stomp them flat instead of the sections just flopping flap themselves~)
- Place the sections atop each other, leaving the section without flaps at the top.
- Friction fit the roof piece on top
- Optionally, tape or place roof decorations on the roof
Total time estimate: 2-3 min
Designing Larger Buildings with Fold Diagrams[edit | edit source]
Of course, we want to be able to make buildings that are more interesting than simple 12" x 12" towers. But as we saw above, when we fold a section of that tower flat, it already nearly fills the suitcase, so how can we pack anything larger? For that building, it was acceptable to simply throw the glued-together connected section into the suitcase. But larger buildings instead need to be first broken down into a completely flat layer, then folded up to fit into the suitcase. Ideally we want to keep these folds along the existing folds that form the corners of the building. In some cases where the box cannot be folded in a single piece, we will need to cut it into several pieces that are later glued back together during the Pre Assembly phase.
By carefully and strategically folding our building sections along the corner lines, we can pack buildings with much larger footprints, even up to 26" x 52"! (The height is determined by the number of sections we stack, and can therefore be as tall or short as we want!)
Fold Diagrams help us determine how a building with a given footprint can be folded and stored. Consider the 16" x 10" x 42" building shown below:
The left two pictures show a simple diagram of the building, noting the dimensions, the footprint, and the corner edges. Note that we are not considering the bottom or top (roof) of the building. If we cut along one of these corner edges, we can unfold the walls, as we see in the third image, giving us a large rectangle with folds where the corners of the building would be, separated into wall panels that alternate between 10" and 16" wide. This represents the unfolded box, which we want to refold in such a way that it can fit in the suitcase. This rectangle is also 42" tall, but we can simply cut it into smaller sections that can be fit into the suitcase and stacked atop one another. When considering how to fold the sections, we don't care about the height, so we can simplify this diagram to the fold diagram on the right. Each line represents one of the building walls (labeled A, B, C, D), and the dots represent the corner edges that we want to fold along. Imagine it as if looking down at the unfolded section from above. In this case, it represents an unfolded sheet.
Fitting into a suitcase longways[edit | edit source]
Now we need to determine how to fold this to fit into a suitcase. Let's choose to have the folded walls fit within the long dimension of the suitcase (26"). Imagine laying This whole unfolded sheet onto the suitcase, as shown below.
Obviously, this cannot fit as is! We will need to cut the wall panels into sections, each of which is at most 18" tall, to fit within the shorter dimension of the suitcase. These sections will later be stacked atop one another during final assembly, like in the 12" x 12" tower above, to create the full building. (Note: In practice it's often easier or necessary to start out by making each section individually, rather than making a large building and then cutting it into sections. But it's helpful to start by imagining the full building first and cutting it down, so we know the pieces to make to build it up)
Now we will consider how to fit one of these cut sections into the suitcase. The others can simply be folded the same way and then stacked on top.
We can now see that the section fits easily within the shorter dimension of the suitcase, but still extends outside the longer dimension. In order to fit the section inside, we will need to fold it along the existing corner folds until it fits. Because the longer suitcase dimension is what we need to account for when making these folds, we say that this section is fit and folded "longways" (we will consider fitting this same building in this suitcase "shortways" below, too)
In this simple example, the proper folds may already be obvious. We can simply fold along edge b to fold panels C and D back on top of panels A and B:
The fold diagram below demonstrates this fold:
The fold diagram is shown on the left. Imagine this as looking at the folded panels from the side. The lines represent the wall panels (A, B, C, D), and the points represent the building corner edges (a, b, c, d) along which we fold. We folded along edge b to fold panels C and D on top. Usually, I draw fold diagrams without the explicit panel and edge labels, instead just writing the length of the panel along the edge, as shown in the simplified diagram on the right.
So now we've solved the fold necessary to fit this building section in the suitcase! This section can be folded as shown in the diagram, then the other sections folded the same way, and then all three sections stacked atop one another and stored in the suitcase.
It is also helpful to consider the thickness of this stack. Each layer of cardboard is around 1/8" thick. When we fold each section, we end up with a section 2 layers thick. We have 3 sections, for a total of 2 x 3 = 6 layers, which are 6 x 1/8" => 6/8" => 3/4" thick. Building roofs are typically 1/4" thick, and we will probably want one footprint piece per section (another 3/8"), so the entire building consumes a 1 3/8" thick layer in our suitcase.
Fitting into a suitcase shortways[edit | edit source]
Now let's consider trying to fit the same building into the same suitcase, but fitting it "shortways", so that the folds must fit in the shorter dimensions of the suitcase. This can sometimes be preferable because it allows the building section to be taller, and may allow us to cut a building into fewer sections, meaning that less time will be spent reconstructing the building at the con. Less sections overall sometimes means less space needed to pack the building, but not always - since we're constrained by a smaller dimension, we may need to make more folds and increase the thickness of the folded section.
Since this building is 42" tall, we can split it into only two 21" tall sections, each of which easily fits within the long dimension of the suitcase:
However, the folds we need to make to fit this section into the suitcase are less obvious. Let's consider the following sequence of fold diagrams:
Starting with partial diagram (1) on the left, we see that if we make no fold at the first corner, then we end up with a 26" long section, and have already overshot our 18" wide suitcase. So we must fold at this first corner, producing the partial fold diagram (2), with a width so-far of 16". For the same reason as before, we must fold at the next corner too, producing diagram (3), still 16" wide. Again, we must fold, producing the final diagram, (4). But the total width of this section even after all the folds is 22" - still 4" longer than our 18" wide suitcase. It seems that it's impossible to fit this section into the suitcase as is.
But we still have options. We can cut this section into section pieces, which can be reconstructed at the con into the original section (just as the sections are themselves reconstructed into the final building).
First, lets consider splitting the section at the corners, producing two 10" + 16" pieces with one corner each.
Now, we can easily create a valid fold diagram - simply fold at each corner, and stack each piece!
These pieces are each 2 layers deep, and when stacked create 4 cardboard layers per section. With 2 sections total, we have 2 x 4 = 8 layers for the body of the building. Despite having fewer layers than when we were fitting it longways, each layer is much less efficient, so we end up with a thicker stack of cardboard (meaning less room for more buildings); We have 8 layers for the body in this arrangement, compared to 6 layers before.
Lets consider splitting the section into pieces by cutting down the middle of the face of the longer panels instead:
Now, we've produced pieces that are 8" + 10" + 8" long, with 2 corners each. Each piece can keep the 8" and 10" panels straight, then fold the final 8" panel, creating a 2-layer piece that's 18" wide. At first this may seem like we've made no progress, but consider this diagram:
We can efficiently stack the two pieces together by putting those dangling 8" sections right next to each other, sandwiched in the middle layer. This middle layer is 8" + 8" = 16" wide, so it still easily fits within the suitcase width! Thus, this entire section is only 3 layers thick, and is more efficient than the 4-layer sections from when we split at the corners. We have 2 sections for the entire building, so the thickness of the building body sections is 3 x 2 = 6 layers -- the same thickness as when we did the longways fit.
Note that if we had tried this "sandwich" technique with the 16" + 10" pieces above, that the middle layer would have been 10" + 10" = 20" wide -- longer than the width of the suitcase, so it wouldn't have helped.
Futher Considerations[edit | edit source]
So it seems that fitting shortways and splitting at the corners is the least efficient solution - it takes more layers, and each layer is shorter in width, and thus less efficient by that metric too (It's possible that your packing circumstances might prefer thicker but less-wide building sections, but for this guide we assume that fewer layers is generally better). But there is even a further disadvantage - rejoining a building at the corners is generally more difficult than rejoining a building in the middle. The corners naturally want to come apart and bend at weird angles when rejoined, and forcing a perfect right angle into a glued corner is generally more difficult than forcing a straight join to be straight. That said, corner joins are sometimes more easy to hide than face joins -- though face joins can also be hidden by applying a final vertical strip of duct tape "windows" during final construction (if you bring your metallic duct tape with you). Truly, there are many tradeoffs to consider!
And what about the longways fit versus the shortways fit with the face joins? Obviously, the face joins require special consideration to hide, and there are two of them, compared to the single corner join of the longways fit. However, the longways fit requires you to cut and them reconstruct 3 building sections, compared to only 2 building sections for the shortways fit. Personally, I would consider dealing with 3 corner joins for three sections to be easier than dealing with 2 face joins per section for 2 sections - 4 joins total. The corner joins require less work to hide, and dealing with 1 more section isn't much more difficult. Plus, a building that potentially falls apart into 3 sections, breaking at 2 points, is more interesting than one that falls apart into two sections, breaking at only 1 point. But of course, your circumstances and preferences may be different!
Hopefully this has helped give you some ideas and tools for considering the merits of different designs, so you can make the tradeoffs that work best for you and your project!
Additional Fold Diagram Examples[edit | edit source]
Here are a few more building footprints and fold diagrams to consider, showing how buildings of different footprints could be split and folded.
Some of the examples below have a fold symbol with an R beside them - this indicates that the fold here would be folded in the reverse direction than the natural fold of the assembled box. This usually doesn't matter, but it may be a consideration if your corners are especially fragile. In my experience, it hasn't seemed to matter. In the examples above, I didn't mark these reverse folds for simplicity.
Gallery[edit | edit source]
More assorted buildings
Packing for BLFC 2024 - I fit around 13 buildings in these bags, one of which was mostly filled with a giant Chase tower, plus a partial fursuit, and lots of tools (most which should be unnecessary with proper planning). And room to spare! I estimate a single bag could fit around 8-10 medium-large sized simple buildings.
Similar buildings made by Magpie! These inspired a lot of the design ideas here, though the actual construction is different.
