island layout advice wanted

[carackobama]

so I've been racking my brains for days over my island layout as I'm really not a fan of it, but can't decide on exactly where I want certain buildings to be. my town is going to have a forest-y, magical theme with celestial elements (think illuminated PWPs, peaceful hidden areas for sitting etc) and I think I want the main part of town to be a more residential area with most of the houses and buildings there. However I can't decide where I want the museum to be - part of me wants it to be in that main part but I don't know where I would put it, and another think it would be nice on the other side of the river somewhere, though that could also potentially be good for other buildings. I'll probably be moving the stores including the Able Sisters when I unlock it to the left of Resident Services (where the two houses are currently) but this isn't certain yet and I also want to find an area for a potential cafe - any advice on what you would suggest with my theme and layout in mind would be greatly appreciated! thank you! <3

 

[Deimos]

First things first, it's important to note that you can move any building except for the Resident's Hall/Town plaza. My advice for you is to make your island your game. Whatever you want to do without considering the opinion of others. And to work on just unlocking everything. Place things where you want them to go without second-guessing yourself. Work on saving bells and nook miles. Do whatever you feel like is right. And remember eventually you get an app that lets you change the landscape and ground. Literally. Stardust is yours my friend and the sky isn't the limit.

 

[JKDOS]

The double south outlet doesn't leave much room for river design to me personally, but I'd probably do something like this.

(Ignore cliffs. I didn't bother to replicate yours)



Or (Pay attention to the cliffs this time)

 

[carackobama]

Bump! Would really appreciate some more ideas, especially to do with house placement c:

 

[BareFootTuna]

I say just go with the flow for now. Place things where you have space. You'll rework the island later on. Once you have a much better feel for how buildings fit and look. For me, I put my villager houses to close together. I'm learning to appreciate space as I place new things down.

 

[Romaki]

I have a similiar layout and I like the idea of having everything at the bottom, but it really won't fit all there. I really liked how they showed the museum in the direct, with its own spot and landscaping around it. I feel like it makes sense to have the houses and shops all together in one place and then place the museum somewhere else, more inside the forest surrounded by more nature than town.

 

[carackobama]

I have a similiar layout and I like the idea of having everything at the bottom, but it really won't fit all there. I really liked how they showed the museum in the direct, with its own spot and landscaping around it. I feel like it makes sense to have the houses and shops all together in one place and then place the museum somewhere else, more inside the forest surrounded by more nature than town.

This is kind of where my head is at the moment too, thank you! Where have you/are you putting your museum?

 

[Romaki]

This is kind of where my head is at the moment too, thank you! Where have you/are you putting your museum?

For now I just put it between the town hall and my house for convienence, but I really want to put it on an upper level once I have a staircase. Looking at your map, I think the right area over your river could already be a nice space for the museum, but I think it would make sense for the museum to be the only building on the higher level once you've unlocked terraforming.

 

[DinoTown]

The best plan of action to figure out how you want the final landscaping to look. Put buildings out of the way, clumped together for now to give you as much freedom as possible for landscaping. It will be a real pain if you decide you want a building somewhere and later decide that somewhere is gonna be a cliff, so now you need to move the building, landscape, and move it back.

I'm not gonna offer any advice on where to put things and what to do, because it's your game and you should decide that, but yeah, if you get an idea of how you want to landscape first, other things are gonna fall more easily into place.