Assemble Your First Low Relief Card Building
This guide walks through assembly using Yard Office, our free single-module kit, as the example; the same steps apply to every module of every Siding Works kit. Download it at no charge from Scene Builder to follow along.
Materials
Matte card around 160 to 220gsm, a metal ruler, a scoring tool, a cutting mat, a thinly applied paper or card adhesive, and a sharp craft knife, which needs careful, controlled handling.
Reading the lines
Black outlines and tab slits mean cut, all the way through the card. Red dashed lines mean score and fold, a light groove rather than a full cut. Printed brick coursing, doors and windows are surface detail, not cut lines: leave them alone.
The four parts of each module
Every numbered module has a body (the front and two return walls, printed with TOP and BASE glue-tab strips), a roof, a floor and a back panel; the second, closures PDF holds the roof, floor and back, labelled ROOF, FLOOR and BACK for that module number.
1. Cut and score the body
Cut only the outer black outline and the short black slits in the TOP and BASE tab strips. Score the red dashed lines with a blunt tool rather than cutting through them.
2. Form the return walls
Fold the two vertical scored lines so the side returns point behind the front, then fold the TOP and BASE tabs towards the back. Dry-fit the floor piece against the folded shape to check the corners are square before gluing anything.
3. Close the module
Glue FLOOR onto the BASE tabs and let the joint set, then glue ROOF onto the TOP tabs. Fit BACK against the rear edges of the two return walls, roof and floor to finish the box.
4. Assemble the scene
Place finished modules side by side in number order and check your clearance behind the track, using the figures in fitting a low relief building behind your tracks, before fixing anything to a baseboard. The footprint in your scene-dimensions.json file excludes baseboard and glue thickness.
Separating digital preview from a finished model
The on-screen preview and the elevation SVG in your download are digital references, useful for checking the design before you print, but they are not a substitute for having actually built the physical model. Until you've cut, scored, folded and glued a kit yourself, treat any on-screen render as a preview, not a completed build.
Building more than one kit together? See joining building fronts into a coherent street next, or explore the other kits on the kits page.