9 Incredibly Fancy Dog Houses, Cat Trees, and Other Pieces of Pet Furniture

Check out these high-design hideouts from Phaidon’s new book Pet-tecture.

BY Shaunacy Ferro

Oct 25, 2018

Americans are spending more money on their pets than ever before, and that money’s not just going to fancy cat food and doggie daycare. It’s also going to intricate pet furniture designed by some of the world’s top architects. “In much the same way that, certainly for the last 200 to 300 years, just about every eminent building designer—from Robert Adam in the 18th century, to Le Corbusier in the 20th, to Zaha Hadid in the 21st—has at least at one point in his or her career turned their attention to designing a chair, so award-winning architects of the here-and-now are increasingly keen to include pet-tecture in their portfolio,” Tom Wainwright writes in the introduction to Pet-tecture, a new book from Phaidon that gathers some of the coolest pet-centric concepts the design world has to offer.

Check a few of the ideas out below. Whether you’re a design fanatic or just a devoted pet parent, these furniture concepts will have you and your furry friend swooning. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that these pieces will look quite so beautiful once they’re covered in fur.

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1. HEADS OR TAILS

Akihiro Yoshida

This two-in-one piece from the Japanese design firm Nendo is both a dog house and a dog bed, depending on what your pup wants. If they jump on top of it, the faux-leather cushion collapses into a bed. If they burrow inside, it pops up to become a cozy shelter.

2. LANDMARKS

Virginia McLeod

Designed by a company called Poopy Cat, these flat-pack, ready-to-assemble cat playgrounds are made to look like famous landmarks. In addition to this cardboard replica of Moscow's famous St. Basil's Cathedral, the series also includes architectural celebrities like the White House and the Great Sphinx of Giza. While they are available for sale, the company only ships within The Netherlands.

3. WOHNBLOCK RETRO

Oliver Kriege for WOHNBLOCK

With WOHNBLOCK, German designer Oliver Kriege has created a cat’s ideal scratching tower. It just happens that it would also look perfect in your very Modern living room. The whole thing stands almost 6 feet tall, with six carpet-lined platforms for napping and sides covered in sisal for scratching. It comes in a few different designs and colors that can also be customized for bigger cats like Maine Coons and Ragdoll cats.

4. CAGE ARCHIBIRD

Jérôme Galland

Pet-tecture has a loose take on the term pet. The pieces include not only innovative takes on standard pet accessories like dog beds and scratching posts, but also spectacular abodes for birds, fish, hermit crabs, bees, and even bats. This sculptural birdcage was created by French designer Grégoire de Laforrest, who has created luxury interiors for clients like Hermès and Cartier.

5. BEE BLOCK & BEE BRICK

Green&Blue

The Cornwall, UK-based studio Green&Blue specializes in designing beautiful products to support local wildlife, like these bee blocks, which can be built into a wall or left in a garden for solitary bees to shelter in, potentially giving them a place to lay their eggs.

6. FORMA ITALIA SUITE

FORMA Italia

The Italian design company Chiavari has been in the luxury furniture business for decades, but it only recently launched FORMA Italia, a pets-only line that's just as luxurious as its designs for people. The retro-looking Suite cat lounger can either be suspended from steel cables or rest atop metal feet.

7. NEGURA PET HOUSE

Natural Slow

All the beds in Japanese pet design studio Natural Slow's Pet House series are made from traditional Japanese Paulownia. The lightweight hardwood regulates temperature and humidity, while the varying shapes are tailored to different pet personalities. The Negura model is made to cradle a cozy pet who likes to bask in the sun, while others provide more private, secluded hiding spaces for shy dogs and cats.

8. catHAUS

Some of the innovative shelters in Pet-tecture are already on sale, while others were created for private clients. Some, like this cat-friendly chaise lounge by the architects at SPACE International, were designed for the L.A.-based Architects for Animals “Giving Shelter,” an annual charity event that asks well-known architects to come up with concepts for pet furniture. Still others were created as tributes to designers own pets, to house feral animals, or as part of museum commissions, among other sources of inspiration.

9. DIY CONCRETE DOG HOUSE

Ben Uyeda

While some of these luxe pet accessories may be out of reach for the average consumer, you can actually create this design on your own. Architect Ben Uyeda’s site HomeMade Modern features relatively simple tutorials to help you construct modern designs at home. This dog house is made with a high-strength, fast-setting concrete called Quikrete—which you can buy at hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowe's—that is designed for interior features like countertops.

Phaidon

Pet-tecture is available for $16.50 on Amazon.