Copied from Milso's post in the BP Tutorial Forums as of 4/1/08:

OK this is how to redesign the most basic of needs. These are in no way a replacement for a good building that is designed from the ground up but there great for starting out and getting off the ground a little faster.

First and most important is the Research center. By designing this first it will save you a lot of time. By these steps we will recreate the starting Research center prototype to be four times more effective there for cutting your research time down to 25% of the time it took before.

1.) Select a built research building that is not working on any projects and hit build
2.) Change the filter to prototype
3.) Now scroll through the list and click on research proto
4.) With research proto highlighted hit view results
5.) Change the name to what the new Research center will be named.
6.) This step is optional but i remove the armor and the radar so that I don’t have to build anything in advance
7.) Slide the research bar all the way to the max.
8.) Hit redesign
9.) After waiting a little time you will get a message that the research is complete
10.) Now select the research center again and look for the new prototype in the list
11.) With it selected hit the view results and see if the results meet your requirements (if you have time I would suggest repeating the steps up to here a few times and selecting the best result.)
12.) If every thing is good hit research
13.) Wait for it to finish researching
14.) Now build your new design (make sure you have enough power cause your new design will work faster but will also take more power)

Ok Now with a new research center under your belt and fully operational time to get some more jobs because I’m sure you don’t want to keep paying the welfare to everyone its expensive. So let’s improve the stating factory.

1.) Select you NEW research center and hit build
2.) The filter should still be set to prototype (if not change it to it)
3.) Find the factory proto and with it selected hit view result
4.) Now change the name
5.) This is optional but remove all the components (radar and armor)
6.) Slide the production slider to the far right
7.) Hit redesign
8.) After a shorter time then last time you should get a message that research is complete.
9.) Now select the research center again and look for the new prototype in the list
10.) With it selected hit the view results and see if the results meet your requirements (if you have time I would suggest repeating the steps up to here a few times and selecting the best result.)
12.) If every thing is good hit research
13.) Wait for it to finish researching
14.) Now build your new design (make sure you have enough power cause your new design will work faster but will also take more power)

Ok now we have a means to advance and jobs for the masses, but we could still have better housing. Ok I’m guessing you got the idea now on how to do this so I’m going to let you go test your thinking. And keep in mind building these designs from the ground, Hull and all is a much better way to go but this will help you get that jump start. New hulls can add Power gen to your houses to cut their power needs. More cargo room to the Factories and make the hull bigger on the research center to allow more scientist to work there. Also a very important building that is not covered with the starting buildings is a warehouse. I would recommend investing in aresearch project to create one when you can as you're going to fill your refineries soon.

Added by Trifler:

Repairing structural damage costs about 100x more credits than repairing armor damage, so keep that in mind when considering your armor. You won't be able to add any weapons to the Starting Buildings though.