Patience is a virtue

I'd like to think of obsidian as a high status block. It's brutal mining time of fifteen seconds in alpha make it an absolute waste of time to try and mine in large amounts. Gathering enough of it in survival to build a large structure was seen as an impressive feat in old multiplayer servers. Enough so that players could be paid fairly well in diamonds for stacks of it. But I would like to go about it a little differently.

If the issue with obsidian is the mining time, then I'll just cut out the mining time. How? By bucketing the lava and transporting it to the building site to then cast. The limitations of this method are the 36 inventory slots and travel time. However I feel that those limitations are much less mind numbingly boring than mining the stuff.

One way to cut down a little bit on travel time to the construction site is to construct a warehouse that will act as a distribution center.

Like most warehouse buildings, this one is fairly simple in it's design. My only thoughts going into it were to construct the facade out of obsidian and allow passers by to easily see inside.

The first floor is mostly for decoration. There's an open hearth furnace to the left that felt fitting. The workshop in the center is based on my standard workshop setup. The smoothstone slabs make it look a little more industrial. The furnaces to the right are purely decoration.

The second floor is purely for storage. I can't imagine ever storing that much lava. Let alone crafting enough buckets to fill them.