In ancient times, after their domestication by the Egyptians, cats may have saved many humans from starvation and disease, which might help explain why we still worship them to this day. Or maybe it’s because they’re the perfect combination of haughty, mischievous, playful, mysterious and affectionate. Or maybe it’s because they’re actually controlling us through parasites transmitted by their poop. Whatever the explanation, people tend to love cats, and when we’re not busy feeding, petting, entertaining and otherwise serving them, our reverence often takes the form of art and design.

Neko Sushi

Two of Japan’s favorite things come together as one in ‘Neko-Sushi,’ a series by the company Range & Nakimushi Peanuts placing a variety of cats atop rolls of sticky rice and wrapped in seaweed. Each one has its own particular ‘flavor,’ with funny improvised props meant to represent raw fish and sushi fixings. This photo series is available for sale as a series of postcards and posters.

Feline Faces Swapped With Their Owners

Swiss photographer Sebastian Magnani swaps the faces of humans with those of their cat friends in the series ‘Undercats,’ producing a series of funny images in which the cats are unusually well-coiffed and accessorized.

Cat Graffiti

Felines are a popular subject for Parisian street artist C215, who’s known for painting them on virtually any kind of urban surface, from walls to trash cans. Though he uses stencils, and often repeats the same designs, each one manages to feel like its own distinct personality thanks to the textures and colors of the surfaces.

Edible ‘Glass’ Cat Dessert

The Kinseiken Seika Company in Hokoto, Japan – which pioneered the transparent ‘miss Shingen mochi’ dessert made of mineral water and agar – delighted the internet with a cat version of its renowned delicacy. It’s an extraordinarily delicate dish, melting away in about 30 minutes.

Cardboard Landmark Cat Houses

Cats invade Russia’s Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, the White House, the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx of Giza and other internationally renowned architectural monuments for Studio Poopy Cat’s ‘Landmark’ series. These intricate pet houses are made of cardboard and feature unexpected details, like a snack elevator inside the Eiffel Tower.

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Cats Cats Cats 20 Fun Feline Focused Works Of Art Design

If we’re going to keep animals in artificial environments to make money off gawking at them, you’d hope we’d at least design these structures sensitively, hiring top architects to give them the kind of loving care we’d give to our own homes. Whether building spacious zoo enclosures mimicking natural environments, bat-friendly bridges, stables to house horses in ultimate comfort or wildlife crossings over highways, this collection of animal-centric architecture aims to be the next best thing to leaving animals in the wild where they belong, and giving them plenty of space from human activity.

Panda House by Bjarke Ingels Group / BIG

BIG designed a circular indoor/outdoor enclosure for giant pandas at the Copenhagen Zoo, set to open in 2018. The spacious and lushly planted structure will house two pandas relocated from Chengdu, China in a layout inspired by the Chinese yin-yang symbol, with each half tilting up at either end. There’s a bamboo forest on one side and a denser ‘misty’ forest on the other to represent the panda’s habitats in the wild.

Bat-Friendly Bridge by NEXT Architecture

This bridge by Next Level Architecture in South Holland doubles as a bat habitat, with just a few modifications to a conventional bridge design, providing an example that could be replicated all over the world. Spanning a river that’s an important natural pathway for the local bat population, the bridge features extra-thick concrete to increase its thermal mass, making it warm for winter hibernation and a cool summer nesting spot.

Raven Enclosure at the Tower of London by Llowarch Llowarch Architects

Five oak and mesh aviaries by Llowarch Llowarch Architects contrast with the ancient forms of the Tower of London, replacing the ‘ad hoc collection of sheds’ once used to house the complex’s famous resident ravens. According to English legend, if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the kingdom will fall – so the birds have been protected inhabitants of the historic palace, fortress and prison since the 17th century. Of course, different ravens have come and gone over the years.

Finnish Stables by Pook

Local architecture studio Pook designed this stylish stable on the edge of a Finnish forest to blend in with the rural setting and complement the local architectural vernacular. The layout creates wind shelters in outdoor spaces to protect the horses against the southwestern winds. Inside, there’s an open room for feeding and walking the horses, storage for equipment and a barn for manure. The use of untreated pine in the cladding helps naturally control the humidity of the environment for the horses’ health.

Kangaroo Enclosure by White Arkitekter

Another modern addition to the Copenhagen Zoo is this cylindrical house for Tasmanian kangaroos by White Arkitekter, which allows visitors to enter the kangaroos’ enclosure without stressing the animals. Part of the enclosure is for the kangaroos themselves, with a heated concrete floor to keep them warm in winter. The slatted timber doors can be folded back to open parts of the space to the wider enclosure, while others remain closed so shy kangaroos can have their privacy.

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A hermit crab scuttles along the sand, carrying a perfect replica of a Japanese wedding chapel on its back, complete with a tiny spire. After designing a series of crystal-clear ‘crawling cities,’ artist Aki Inomata returns with another detailed architectural alternative to natural shells, rendered in transparent acrylic so we can still see the crab’s body within.

Entitled ‘White Chapel,’ this miniature sculpture is the third installment of Inomata’s project ‘Why Not Hand Over a Shelter to Hermit Crabs?’ The shape will look familiar to Westerners, of course, as we see churches like this practically on every block. But in Japan, such structures are used for weddings only, and rarely for worshipping or any other form of religious services.

“When I visit Western countries, I sometimes notice the origin of architecture, habits, foods, etc… in Japan, they would be transformed into local styles, and I ask myself, ‘are we Japanese living in mimicry of western world?’ says the artist. “For me, these imitations, or I would say reproductions or arrangements of Western-style architecture, seem to reflect identities of post-colonialism inside of Japanese people.”

Inomata uses CT scanning to perfectly replicate the interior shape of a natural hermit crab shell so all of her artificial alternatives fit comfortably. Previous versions have included skylines of New York City and Amsterdam, as well as reproductions of buildings in Paris and Tokyo.

Of all the architectural greats we’ve come to admire – Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Henri Sullivan, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , to name a few – they all have one unflinchingly common attribute: they’re human. Nature photographer Ingo Arndt sees the world a bit differently, however. He spends his days photographing the incredible architectural accomplishments of the animal kingdom. In his book Animal Architecture, he introduces the human world to the animals who create stunningly beautiful structures with skills acquired only by instinct.

Most of us have seen birds pick up random objects from the ground to weave into nests: blades of dead grass, pieces of straw, and even small objects discarded by humans. This behavior of collecting and building with found materials is more common than you might realize. Above is the elaborate architectural accomplishment of a male bowerbird: a brightly-colored structure built to attract a mate. Male bowerbirds build these towers and decorate them with any colorful object they can find that might catch the attention of a female. Females select their mates based on the elaborateness of the structure, so the males spend enormous amounts of time and energy collecting materials and arranging them in interesting patterns that will catch and hold the females’ attention. Baya weavers (top picture, far left) weave their homes out of fresh grass that they cut with their beaks. Once constructed, the beautiful grass nests dry and harden in the heat, creating uniquely colored structures.

The mere mention of termites can strike fear into the heart of any homeowner, but these little insects are capable of building massively impressive structures. Compass termites build wedge-shaped mounds that can reach up to ten feet in height. Relative to the termites’ size, these structures are almost unbelievably enormous and are usually found in clusters on the Australian plains. The compass termites build their structures in a rigid north-south orientation, the reason for which is not entirely understood by scientists. Similar in appearance are the massive towers of the Australian spinifex termites (top picture, center). These towers can reach a whopping 20 feet high and hold colonies of 3 million termites. The colony works tirelessly to mix saliva with dirt and carry these tiny orbs up to the top to keep building the structure. They even have an established workforce hierarchy, with supervisor termites watching over the workers as they build.

Ants are perhaps the most well-known animal architects. Able to carry loads many times the weight of their own bodies, ants all over the world build impressive hills using nothing more than instinct, determination, and strength. This six-foot-tall structure was created by European red wood ants and is so ingeniously designed that rainwater is diverted when it hits the hill and no water can penetrate the walls. Australian weaver ants (top picture, far right) take a different approach: they build their homes from leaves that they pull together with incredible strength. The ants use the silk excreted by their larvae to hold the leaves together, eventually creating huge structures worthy of commemoration in architectural halls of fame. These structures and the entire series of 120 stunning nature photographs can be seen in Arndt’s book Animal Architecture.