Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Toronto, but a team of builders using the game Minecraft have been recreating many of the city’s landmarks one virtual block at a time.
The online visionaries are part of a group called BuildTheEarth Canada, one of 48 international teams under the BuildTheEarth (BTE) umbrella. The digital builders use servers in Minecraft, a popular sandbox game where players can construct structures with mined resources, to recreate real world buildings to scale.
The Canadian team’s latest success is an impressive 1:1 scale recreation of the Rogers Centre, with one Minecraft block equaling one cubic metre of the city.
@btecanada #rogerscentre ♬ original sound - BuildTheEarth Canada
Members of BTE connect through the instant messaging site Discord and work together on multiplayer servers to build cities, regions and even entire countries in Minecraft servers.
Other Minecraft players can virtually visit the BTE creations for themselves after they’ve been shared online.
Since being founded four years ago, 450 builders of all ages have joined the Canadian chapter. The group has completed more than 3,000 builds, including dozens of replica Toronto landmarks.
From houses and malls to skyscrapers and stadiums, BTE Canada’s mission is to eventually replicate every building in the city, and beyond, on Minecraft servers.
Building the Rogers Centre in Minecraft
BTE’s recent recreation of the Rogers Centre required tens of thousands of blocks and many hours of meticulous planning and design workshopping to pull it off.
Recreation of the Roger’s centre in 1:1 scale created in Minecraft
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Perhaps even more impressive than the grand dimensions itself, the bulk of the undertaking was done by just one person: Owen Mallory, a Grade 12 student and Minecraft builder from Milton.
Having been involved in a number of Toronto’s virtual builds — like City Hall, the Eaton Centre and First Canadian Place — Mallory was quick to point out that none of those projects compared to the level of detail required for the stadium.
Using Google Maps and Google Earth to ensure an accurate assembly, Mallory told TorontoToday the Rogers Centre assignment was so daunting that the rest of his team backed out during the early stages of construction, leaving just him to complete it.
“There was a team of us back in late 2022, and after a week or two, everyone started giving up,” he recalled. “We had the shell of the building with a partial roof and without any colours or details on it.”
Following the exodus, the project sat unfinished for years — until Mallory picked it back up again before the winter holiday break.
Two weeks and 40 man-hours of building later, the finishing touches on the Blue Jays’ proud home were complete. From every pane of glass and gate entrance, right down to the individual trees and stairways outside the venue, no exterior detail was left behind.
“It’s such a big and difficult build, so there’s a lot of satisfaction in completing it,” he said. “It’s this cool feeling you get that you just did something big, especially on a building like the Rogers Centre.”
Minecraft offers sense of ‘community’
BuildTheEarth is completely volunteer based. Virtual builders are not paid for their work and most members are in school or have full-time jobs outside of the virtual hobby.
So, what’s in it for them?
Cities like Toronto are often criticized for being a difficult place to make new friends but BTE spokesperson Jacob Sherman said joining the group is akin to joining a social community.
“You make friends on there,” he said of the Minecraft servers. “The interactions and connections you make while building can become friendships in real life.”
Sherman explained the space is accessible to builders at all levels. Active members can help newbies “train” so they’re up to date on the building guidelines and best practices set out by BTE.
Because many Minecraft users are interested in fields such as computer programming, graphic design and architecture, Sherman said the game can be an educational outlet for real world careers.
In Mallory’s case, the 17-year-old wants to enter a trade where he gets to make things with his hands. Carpentry is among his top interests, he said.
Real world impact
While members of the BTE community are striving to replicate the world in its current state, the virtual space also allows builders to memorialize structures and cities.
Sherman told TorontoToday the BTE team out of Ukraine has been working tirelessly to recreate areas that have been destroyed amid the conflict with Russia.
“It’s really cool,” he said. “For example, Mariupol has much of its city centre done, and most of that isn’t even there in real life anymore.”
Meanwhile, the BTE U.S. team has begun brainstorming how to memorialize some of the buildings and areas that were destroyed in the devastating wildfires that occurred in Los Angeles this month.
“We’ll ask people within that group on Discord if they have any places that they personally connect to that were destroyed or damaged,” Sherman explained. “We’ll take suggestions from them and build those places.”
“There’s a lot of options for creativity,” he added.
