Beyond the dog house: DIY dog structures from real architects

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Opening today at the Long Beach Museum of Art is a show called “Architecture for Dogs,” featuring 13 innovative designs custom-made for different breeds. There’s some seriously cool stuff here: a knitted piece for the fuzzy white Bichon Frise, a cooling lounge chair for the overheated pup, and several innovative updates to the dog house. The best part, for those of you who have a little DIY spirit, is that the architects have made their plans downloadable online so you can build these structures; and you can upload your own designs to share with the community. It’s high-concept DIY to make your best friend’s life a little more comfortable — and a lot more stylish.

Japanese designer, Kenya Hara curated the show and also designed special stairs for the teacup poodle. Hara writes:

People have designed their environments to their own scale. For instance, each step of a stairway is 15cm high, around the world. This came to be naturally because of the height of humans and the length of their feet. The same goes for the heights of chairs and tables, the existence and size of doors, in fact, the size of houses and cities are predicated on the human body. Accordingly, dogs, who spend their lives at the side of humans, must accept human scale. This architecture is an apparatus for the purpose of naturally bringing dogs and humans eye to eye. As for those super-small dogs, who spend all their time looking up, definitely let them try it out!

The show runs through September 3 at the Long Beach Museum of Art.  

We also invite you to tell us about your dog for an upcoming project we’re calling “Dogs of LA.” Tell us, what makes your dog awesome?

Kayuzo Sejima's Architecture for the Bichon Frise
Kayuzo Sejima’s Architecture for the Bichon Frise (The original image is no longer available, please contact KCRW if you need access to the original image.)
Pointed T by the Hara Design Institute for the Japanese Terrier
Dog Cooler by Hiroshi Naito, designed for the Spitz
Dog Cooler by Hiroshi Naito, designed for the Spitz (The original image is no longer available, please contact KCRW if you need access to the original image.)