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In 2021, a real estate agent named Lohnathan Lower posted pictures of the mini home he built for his golden retriever online. The post racked up millions of views and soon after the doggie dad decided to go even more elaborate.

Lower’s ended up building a mini-mansion for his dog Teddy, complete with lights, wall decor, a miniature television, a faux fireplace and a tiny magazine called “Playdog”. “I just did it because I’m extra,” Lower said.

Teddy’s bespoke doghouse was so popular that Lower grew an 11 million-follower social media empire under the name AGuyandaGolden, which led to collaborations with businesses including Petsmart, Subaru, and Hilton. Lower is now working full-time as a content creator. And coining it.

What followed is the rise of ‘barkitecture’, as Pinterest dubbed the growing “animal-first architecture” trend in 2021.

 

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The trend has been fuelled by Americans’ obsession with home-improvement shows and social media glory, and today some folks invest serious money into creating the best life for their pets.

Homeowners are integrating ‘dog-specific’ showers into entryways and laundry rooms so that dirty pups don’t have to be cleaned off outside or in the human’s shower. There are electronic pet doors, tailored kennels designed to blend in with the decor of a room; and pet feeding stations with water faucets so owners don’t have to fill a pet’s dish in the kitchen sink. And these are just the minor conveniences.

Luxury ‘dog caves’ and customised ‘pet feeding stations’ are being built into existing kitchen and living room designs, giving pets an allocated space that usually is the reserve of kids without fur.

“While some ‘barkitecture’ elements have been in use for at least a decade, the trend saw a big boom during the pandemic”, said Jennifer Pinto, an interior designer for Jackson Design and Remodeling, who works with petowners to design living spaces for their pooches.

“People were nesting at home and really viewing their spaces more as sanctuaries,” Pinto said. “A lot of people started hyper-focusing on their pets.”

According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent an estimated $137 billion on pet products in 2022, a more than 10% increase from the previous year. According to a Pew survey done, more than half of US pet owners now consider their pets to be “as much a part of their family as a human member.”

Interestingly enough, some believe the increasing trend of incorporating pets into our lives as ‘humans’ coincides with another social change – people are having fewer kids and more pets. The original dog daddy, Lowe, believes that younger Americans are seeing pet ownership as a more affordable option than having kids in the first few years of marriage. You might even call the new trend ‘children-training’.

 

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One of the most popular barkitecture pictures on Instagram is a lavish 2016 “washing station” design by Dina Bandman Goldstone, which features an elevated, blue-tiled dog bath and matching de Gournay wallpaper. The room was photographed with a series of 30 various dog breeds, including a shih tzu and two French bulldogs, as part of a design display in San Francisco.

Image: dinabandman.com

Cat owners are of course not far behind their dog counterparts, and cat furniture has been around for ages. The latest trend does however focus more on dogs than other pets.

“I haven’t been asked to do anything for reptiles or ferrets or a more exotic-type animal,” a Massachusetts-based architect, said. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we could do for fish – we could do integrated aquariums.”

‘Barkitecture’ seems here to stay, or at least as long as Instagram is around. This does not mean that you’re a bad boy if your pooch sleeps on an old pillow in the laundry room. Most of the time these over-the-top designs and decor ideas are not really for the dogs.

As Lowe says, “At the end of the day, the pets don’t really care,” she said. “It’s more for us, right?”

[source:guardian]