yes it is as wide as the pentagon is, 41 blocks, but the towers in the edges makes it 45 if you want to be strict, but the wall it self up to the middle of the towers is 41.
Well arches are a pretty good way to start making a dome, it doesn't have to be a complete dome, it can be cut off right when the second floor starts, and leave a little hole in the middle for light to come through.
Well, I didn't build things to be like how I do now in an instant, I've studied many builds by other people especially in youtube, and also try to study design philosophies in wikipedia, either by searching for the name (Gothic, Neo-Classical, etc.) or by opening pages of old towns which have notable buildings or architectural styles (for example the inspiration for Leeuwenhoek style is the city of Koln/Cologne).
For the record though, much of the Parliament and Domus Rubra is actually inspired by the styles of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Emmanuele_Monument"]The Vittorio Emmanuele monument in Italy[/ame] and
Kazan' Cathedral of St. Petersburg but of course I haven't been able to completely translate their aura into minecraft, since we're limited by blocks and stairs to make accents to the buildings, not to mention the monotonic look the blocks gives us when using only one material.
For building in SkyCity, I suggest you to look more into [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_architecture"]Neo-Classical Architecture[/ame] and in particular the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_style"]Empire Style[/ame] which is a derivative of the Neoclassical architectural style.
For the purpose of SkyCity University itself though, I think
The Rotunda building in the University of Virginia can be a good inspiration especially because it is made with red bricks as well, a style that I particularly fond of out of all the American styles, not to mention that it was designed by Thomas Jefferson.
For my next building, which will house the "hall of chests" in SkyCity (akin to the Commune Building in Orbiteria) I will model it after [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Venezia"]Porta Venezia in Milan[/ame]
My general suggestion about how to build is actually very simple, there are a few things that you have to pay attention to:
1. Tone/Contrast you can't build with just one material, even two will not cut it through as good as it would be when you do with three (glasses are included), this all because we can't translate what I will dub as "accents" in the building styles, primarily because we're building like we do with lego, at a fixed size and mostly fixed shape at that. Real Life Architects can use variably sized materials to achieve contrasts, while ours are fixed, so we have to more or less attempt to simulate what Architects do in real life with our limitations. Blocks which have particularly good tones are the sandstone derivatives (smooth and chiseled), stone bricks, red bricks and nether bricks, and stone slabs, of these nether brick is my favourite because it already has a good toning and contrasting by texture. Stone bricks have a particularly bad texture from my POV, so using it repeatedly for a long wall will make it look flat and ugly, so unless you're actually building a castle wall, avoid to use only stone bricks. Cobblestone is particularly notorious for having a bad texture, and yet it is still a very good material if you use it as a foundation, particularly because it gives off a realistic feel, but it is optional. If you are building in creative though, Obsidian is actually very good, it has the best texture in default.
tl;dr, don't use just one material in a wall
2. Accent, this is what Sjin from Yogscast would like to call depth in his video about building a castle. I define an Architectural Accent in Minecraft as the perception of unblockiness, because what we want to build is beyond cubes and all that, we want to build great structures, even dirt, cobbles and standard sandstones if put together in the correct style can look good, if you can find a way to accentuate it. To achieve an Accent you can use blocks which are not blocky, for example stairs, fences, and glass panels. You can see how to use fences to acquire accent by looking at Leeuwenhoek and the Watchtower (both are done in Leeuwenhoek style), it won't look as good as it would without the fences for example. Another way to achieve accent is to design the walls as such that they are not straight, as with my example in the post before, and as you can see in the map I gave you, the stairs put in the correct stylings can give you a lot more accentuated look than with just blocks, and the corner stairs 1.3 gave us is a particularly magnificent device to achieve accent.
tl;dr don't make a cube, don't just replace the dirt in a dirthouse
3. Roofing. It is of no debate that the form of the roof pretty much define the feel of the building itself. The Style of the roofings particularly should follow the general philosophy that you use in the building itself. For example if you are going with Gothic walls, use a Gothic style roofing to achieve the complete Gothic feel of the building, if you put a dome rather than a high roof in a Gothic building, it suddenly becomes a Neo-Classical building, defeating the purpose of actually building a Gothic style at all. To build a good roof it is of note that you must not attempt to build a stair pyramid, as with blocks, the main principal of roofing is to give it contrast with another subroof, try to think about roofs in fractals, rather than one complete structure, especially if you are not building a dome. And because minecraft stairs have a 45 degrees inclination in which it is not always desirable, remember to cut off at certain points and replace with slab when you want to achieve another inclination.
tl;dr I make great roofs :lol:
4. Repetition. It is absolutely unnecessary to build a unique style for every facet of a structure, unless if you are actually building a statue rather than a building. You actually just need to design either a section of a wall which you can repeat ad infinitum or one side of the building which you can then replicate, which is why I would suggest you to build in rectangular rather than pentagonal because minecraft doesn't like anything that is not a cube. But then again, even when you have got a very good style to repeat in your structure, you still have to break it once in a while to give it contrast, and the break can be a very good marker of the midline of the building for example, a break can be put in form of a great window, an arch, or a door, whichever you prefer.
tl;dr you actually only design a fraction of the building
well pretty much this what I have got to say for now, go at it, and try yourself in creative, you have the necessary talents to build great buildings in minecraft, as the houses of the south SkyCity stand in testament, you just need to translate that ability into a larger scale, and actually your attempt to fit in the redstone powering inside those houses gives them such an accent that makes them one of the best set of houses I've seen either in the server or outside.
