It’s not unusual for architecture enthusiasts to drool over elaborate scale models, but edible materials definitely add an extra dimension to our hunger for accurate miniature details. More than 200 pounds of gingerbread, 60 pounds of royal icing and 10 pounds of gum paste and pastillage went into the making of this holiday masterpiece completed by “gingerbread architect” (it’s a thing) Beatriz Muller for Williams Sonoma.

Currently on display in the window of the Columbus Circle location in New York City, the model recreates some of the Big Apple’s most iconic buildings and scenes, all measured and built to scale, including One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building and the Statue of Liberty with the Time Warner Center as the centerpiece. “Gingerbread City” stands more than six feet tall and weighs 300 pounds.

Look closely and you’ll spot some authentic details like a gingerbread subway, taxi cabs, tiny people, store windows painted with icing, construction zones, street signs and trash bags along with trees made of rosemary and dill. Muller notes that many complex gingerbread structures are technically edible, but made with altered doughs that are high on strength and durability while tasting like sawdust. That makes it possible to use carpenter’s tools and sanders for easy construction. Hers, in contrast, actually taste good, and the only tools she uses are a small x-acto knife and ruler.

“I make traditional soft gingerbread cookies and not construction gingerbread. Cookies are baked at a lower temperature so they are a little bit crisper but still soft. The secret to building such big and tall buildings with soft gingerbread cookies lies in erecting the right internal  edible structure that will support the soft cookies. I do this by baking gingerbread posts and beams as well as making pastillage beams to support weight bearing walls.”

“The hardest part of building the gingerbread city was designing the buildings as accurately as possible using Google earth as my guide. I was able to find some information on the web regarding the buildings’ general measurements like height and width, but not much else. I used these measurements as my guide to scale down the buildings and a keen eye on the tablet screen to figure out the rest.”

When catching a contemporary Hollywood movie like ‘Blade Runner 2049’ at the theater, it’s easy to assume nearly everything we see is CGI, but a new video from the famed Weta Workshop gives us an inside look at the incredible miniature world they created for the film. They bring Philip K. Dick’s dystopian sci-fi vision of Los Angeles even further into terrifying focus through the lens of director Ridley Scott, showing how the city evolved over the decades that have ensued since the original 1982 film took place.

The city is now blanketed by smog, constant rain and snow from extreme pollution of the entire earth. The Weta design team built upon the original film’s classic aesthetic, making the architecture even more doom and gloom than it was before, and exploring the ways in which the polluted atmosphere affects residents of the city, even at ground level.

Weta artists conceived, built and hand-painted the miniature sets, creating an entire fictional L.A. that’s terrifying and amazing all at once. The centerpiece of the set is the LAPD building, which has come to loom villainously over the rest of the city. The miniature for this particular structure is 16 feet tall, so large and heavy, they had to build it lying down and lift it into vertical position with a chain block.

As noted on Weta’s Instagram, each and every shot of the city (led by cinematographer Alex Funke) “represents many, many hours of meticulous setup and painstaking attention to every detail.”

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A post shared by W?t? Workshop (@wetaworkshop)

“During the film’s production, Weta Workshop was brought on to build large miniatures for many of the key environments. The sequences had been worked out in pre-vis, but required a detailed design pass to imbue the environments with life and realism, these concepts were used as a guide for the miniature teams. Extreme weather, tropical storms, and tsunamis are commonplace in 2049, leaving coastal cities destroyed. Mostly abandoned, the cities are now wastelands, occupied only by scavengers and those that were unable to escape.”

Fit for the most discerning fans of modern architecture, these dollhouses and other miniature architectural creations feature tiny moving parts, high-end designer furniture, swimming pools, built-in lighting and other fun details, rendered in astonishing realism. You’ll almost wish you could shrink yourself small enough to tour their often-fantastical layouts, which range from the luxurious to the gritty.

Flipped Structures & Tiny Towers by Takahiro Iwasaki

Japanese artist Takahiro Iwasaki makes mirrored wood architectural models and tiny towers made of toothbrush bristles, both in ongoing series inspired by the structures commonly found in Japan. The artist says ‘Reflection Model’ is meant to show that everything can become vastly different depending on your perspective.

Urban Utility Buildings by EVOL

Grimy rectilinear urban objects become weathered, aging apartment buildings in the hands of street artist EVOL, who uses cardboard, stencils and spray paint to transform them into micro cities.

Architectural Furniture by Ted Lott

Wooden stools and chairs act as the structural basis for tiny timber-frame buildings by artist Ted Lott. Using found furniture and pine, the artist re-contextualizes stick frame construction, adapting it to the curves of the base object in works that are remarkably skeletal.

Hyperrealistic Architectural Models by Joshua Smith

Every last detail on Joshua Smith’s incredible architectural models looks aged, weathered and utterly realistic, from peeling paint and stained awnings to graffiti and posters wheat pasted onto the walls. The artist finds real-life urban buildings to use as a starting point and crafts everything from trash bags in a dumpster to Chinese takeout on tiny rooftop dining tables, from the restaurant on the bottom floor.

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Architecture In Miniature 13 Modern Dollhouse Other Tiny Buildings

The kind of graffiti-covered, poster-plastered, weathered and visibly aging architecture that once characterized many big cities and has now largely been demolished is recreated in miniature by artist Joshua Smith. Every aspect of Smith’s tiny urban environments is crafted in loving detail, with absolutely nothing overlooked. Photographs of each miniature (by Andrew Beveridge of ASB Creative) will make you wish you could examine them in person with a magnifying glass, appreciating the realism in every sidewalk crack, weed, pebble and fallen leaf.

A dumpster at the Oakland Docks is packed full of tiny trash, some strewn around its base, a plastic bag fluttering on the barbed wire fence behind it. Melbourne’s Liberated X Bookshop and Shoe repairs features some fantastic Bladerunner-inspired wheat pasting, peeling plywood and the world’s tiniest padlocks. Big Bang Fireworks Company, based on 15 Pell Street in New York City’s Chinatown looks like you could slide those windows open and find a tiny family dining inside.

Based in South Australia, Smith previously worked for sixteen years as a stencil artist, and has now shifted his focus to model-making. The artist recently granted an interview to ArchDaily about his modeling process.

“The longest build, which was my Kowloon Miniature, took three solid months working on average six to seven days a week and eight to sixteen hour-long days,” says Smith. “I strive to create a reality. I take as many reference photos as possible to mimic every single streak of rust, grime and chipping of stonework. I want viewers to be fooled, if I are a photo of the completed work in sunlight, to think it is the real thing.”

Take a closer look at some high-resolution images at Joshua Smith’s website.

Hold the most iconic and imposing of Eastern Europe’s Brutalist architecture in the palm of your hand with this new set of paper miniatures by Zupagrafika. The design studio presents ‘Brutal East,’ a kit of seven cut-outs you assemble yourself into tiny towers from Belgrade, Kaliningrad, Prague, St. Petersburg, Wroclaw and more. ‘Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc,’ the packaging reads, an enticing statement if any architecture nerd ever heard one.

“From the functionalist panelák estates to the otherworldly concrete grand designs, the charm of the former Eastern Bloc architecture is certainly brutal,” say the designers. “’Brutal East’ by Zupagrafika is a kit of illustrated paper cut-out models celebrating post-war architecture of Central and Eastern Europe that allows you to playfully explore and reconstruct some of the most controversial edificies erected behidn the Iron Curtain.”

“Contains 7 Brutalist buildings to assemble, from omnipresent pre-cast housing estates to mighty Post-Soviet landmarks awaiting renovation or threatened by demolition.”

The kit is appealingly packaged and beautifully detailed, each building bearing its tiny satellite TV dishes, stains, graffiti and weathering. It’s a neat way to hold on to divisive architecture that may soon be lost to history. While many people think these structures are ugly and depressing, they’re undeniably memorable.

‘Brutal East’ is just the latest kit of paper Brutalist models from Zupagrafika; the design studio previously released a set of Modernist Architectural Matryoshka it calls ‘Blokoshka’ as well as sets from London, Paris, Katowice and Warsaw. They also offer tiny paper models of Polish street icons like advertising columns, ticket validators and 1980s cars. All kits are available in the studio’s online shop.