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For the animal lovers among our audience, this week we have put together a special roundup of images of architecture alongside some marvelous critters. While not exactly a mainstay of architectural photography, proponents of the form like BoysPlayNice, Jesus Granada and Rafael Gamo have dared to include animal inhabitants in their architectural compositions. Read on to see a selection of 20 creative images where you will find horses, sheep, cows, goats, dogs, cats, and even elephants.

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This August 19th is World Photo Day, which celebrates photography on the anniversary of the day on which France bought the patent for the daguerreotype, one of the earliest photographic processes, and released it to the world for free in 1839. At ArchDaily, we understand the importance of photography in architecture—not only as a tool for recording designs, but also as a discipline that many of us enjoy. To celebrate the occasion, we decided to reveal the most popular images ever published on ArchDaily, as selected by you, our readers. Using data gathered from My ArchDaily, we have ranked the 100 most-saved images from our database; read on to see them.

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We love construction details! That's why this week's photos highlight the art of the synthesis of materials and the varied photographic products we can obtain by looking closer. Photographers like Joel Filipe, Marie-Françoise Plissart and Adria Goula, give us precise and beautiful exposure to wooden joints, steel structures, concrete details, curtain walls and more.

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Putting aside finishes, coatings, and cladding to work with exposed structural elements is not an easy task. Faced with this challenge, architects have demonstrated an eagerness to surpass ourselves and to design increasingly creative structures. In portraying this type of project, there are often opportunities for photographers to create incredible and innovative compositions: from geometric patterns, to the use of symmetry and rhythm, to the possibility of focusing on the textures and details of the materials. Here, we present a selection of photographs of impressive structures by renowned photographers such as Iwan Baan, Julien Lanoo and Yao Li, among others.

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It can't be denied that architects love brick. The material is popular both for its warmth and for the diversity of expressions that can be achieved by applying it in a creative way—depending on the arrangement of individual bricks or the combination of bonds, it’s possible to arrive at a result that is both original and attractive. That ingenuity is what photographers like Hiroyuki Oki, Gustavo Sosa Pinilla, and François Brix, among others, have attempted to capture in their photographs. In these images, light is a key element of good composition, allowing the photographers to control the intensity of color and the contrast of masses and voids, as well as enhancing the incredible textures of the brick we love so much.

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Skinny houses have a wider appeal than their footprint would suggest. With cities becoming denser, and land becoming rare and expensive, architects are increasingly challenged to design in urban infill spaces previously overlooked. Although designing within these unusual parameters can be difficult, they often require an individual, sensitive response, which can often lead to innovative, playful, even inspiring results. With that in mind, here are 22 houses with a narrow footprint, and a broad impact.

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Mental wellbeing is a real topic of concern in architecture. A recent survey by The Architects’ Journal revealed that over 52% of architecture students expressed concern regarding their mental health.[1] When one considers the long hours, the competitive nature of the course, as well as the sheer duration of study, this perhaps isn’t that surprising. The “all-nighter” attitude of most architecture schools exacerbates the problem, as studies show a lack of sleep reduces the mind’s resilience to issues such as anxiety and depression.[2]

Yet this aspect of the architectural education system isn’t showing any sign of changing. What can architectural students (and their professional counterparts) do to minimize the impact that architecture has on their psychological wellbeing? I would argue that the answer, at least partly, can be found in the practice of mindfulness.

If we think about how the educational system worked in the past, we can quickly see that both the teaching style in schools as well as the school’s infrastructure were very different from the current system. The educational model of the twentieth century could be defined as being similar to the "spatial model of prisons, with no interest in stimulating a comprehensive, flexible and versatile education."

However, we are now at a time when social, economic and technological developments have created a more global society and where information and learning are becoming more affordable. This radical change has transformed the societies in which we live, leaving the current educational model based on a rigid and unidirectional teaching obsolete. 

As such, there are schools that have not only broken the mold of traditional teaching but have formed new educational standards, exploring new paradigms and opening up new possibilities within the design of educational spaces. Since architecture and educational models often reflect the ideology of a society, how is the school of 21st century defined? 

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