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I have a pile of unassembled MDF. I intend to turn it into ugly, concrete scifi city, without going insane in the process.
While i dabbled with mdf terrain before, i have never tried my hand at such a large scale project.
So, lets get down to business, shall we?

The core of the project is pile of Zen Terrain buildings. They are cheap, good quality, and they are made in my country,
so they were pretty obvious choice. They came completely pre-cut and ready for assembly, which is a great time saver
- i never liked sanding and cleaning the pieces after removing them from the boards.
The buildings i got come in two flavors - bigger Hab-L , and smaller Hab1.

Hab1 - they can be bought individually or in 3-pack.


And as you can see they stack neatly on top of each other.



Hab-L - it's the same deal as with Hab-1 - just slightly bigger. They are also sold in 2-packs.



They also can stack on each other:





and they are compatible with the smaller Hab 1:


This bit below is a motel. It comes with a side banner sign (not pictured). It's not a standalone piece, its designed to clip on to
any two story combination of Hab buildings.


The buildings can be connected with modular bridges. The bridges are made of short bits that can be clipped together.


I got three bundle sets and some additional bits - this gave me 6 Hab-L and 9 Hab1s . Together with bridges and motel module you
can build decent amount of multi level urban sprawl.



Or, if the sanity is not your thing, you might stack them all on each other into single ridiculously tall tower.



Now, its time for some subjective nitpicking. Note that these are very minor issues, closely related to my personal preferences.

1. They have no interior and building one would require rather extensive modifications, considering the way they are designed to stack.

2. Doors are just laser engraved, rather then cut all the way through. Now, i dont really care about buildings with interiors, but i
prefer to have my doors slightly recessed - it gives some additional depth to the building. In this case its not possible without cutting them out.

3. Some desgin decisions make no sense from real world standpoint. Especially in Hab-1 (the small stackable house)
if you stack them on each other, only ground level doors are available. Its very minor thing, but it rubs my OCD in wrong way .
In bigger HAB-L, on the other hand you end up with doors hanging above ground - although in this case the manufacturer
provided a small bit of wood to cover them.

4. Due to stacking method, if you want to keep the buildings fully modular rather than deciding on a single configuration you are
somewhat limited in your choices of detailing. I like to put all kinds of tubes, wires, junction boxes etc to my buildings - but here
adding bits in wrong place might make the buildings un-stackable. Basically some lower parts of the walls need to stay clean or
the blocks won't fit each other.

5. There are some text markings and numbers engraved on the wall. I'd prefer them to be plain.

But none of these complaints change the fact that overall, these sets offer great bang for buck, they look cool, stack,
and because they are pre-cut, assembling them was a breeze. So, i guess i am to good start .

A small update:

I put together some Zen Terrain Portahabs - cheap and stackable living containers.
Sets are mix of hdf and cardboard bits.




I have added some 3d printed bits and other random greeblies:

Those are some seriously nice kits and you've assembled them nice and clean- perfect!

Somebody earned their Jam of the Month Christmas bonus with the stacking concept- really gives some flexibility in laying out a table.

I have never been accused of any measure of sanity- I like the Tower of Bab-El.

I read your pro's and con's list with interest and also have a fair measure of the OCD gene. Would it be possible, I wonder, to convert or scratchbuild some small balconies and half-wall sections out of thin stock and other amenities that could be attached by magnets on the exposed walls that need some filling up? That would allow you to arrange the structures any way you liked and different every time and then just apply the 'skins' to provide some depth/relief to the otherwise blank wall surfaces?

I'll be following your progress with interest.