A new book proves pets get the best design

Architect-designed homes for pets aren’t new. Zaha Hadid Architects created a kennel. Muji art director Kenya Hara created an entire website dedicated to architecture for dogs. Even Frank Lloyd Wright designed a home for hounds. Though small in scale, these structures are inventive, experimental, and—of course—downright cute.

Pet-tecture: Design for Pets, a new book from Phaidon, surveys over 200 of contemporary design’s most delightful products, homes, and ideas for animals of all types: dogs, cats, bees, horses, hermit crabs, chickens, and more. It’s “meant to be a practical, aesthetic, and symbolic celebration of animal-human companionship through design,” writes author Tom Wainwright in the book’s introduction.

Jérôme Galland

Ben Uyeda

These designs celebrate the animals for which they’re designed, but they also reflect larger issues impacting the built world. Green & Blue’s Bee Block and Bee Brick offer a place for solitary bees affected by climate change. Aki Inomata’s 3D-printed homes for hermit crabs were designed for an exhibition commemorating France returning some of its embassy land to Japanese ownership, and evokes sentiments about migration and colonialism.

Hiroshi Nato’s Dog Cooler bed features aluminum pipes that can be filled with ice so that animals can lay across them and cool down on hot days. Gitta Gschwendtner’s Animal Wall separates an apartment complex from a riverfront pathway while also providing habitat for birds.

Aki Inomata courtesy of Maho Kubota Gallery

Masayuki Hayash

Akihiro Yoshida