Gingerbread homes are just so 20th Century, don’t you think? Here are a few quirky variants on this timeless classic for the more adventurous cook-turned-constructor.

From Instrucables user KitchenTableScraps, with both a pastry chef and architecture background, comes a more urban solution inspired by Brooklyn – the gingerbread townhouse, technically edible but too beautiful to destroy.

DomesticEngineer takes a similarly hybrid approach, combining an unusual type of domicile- the igloo – with the appropriately winter-season, gingerbread-building activity.

Finally, from TringsThings there is a more fanciful gingerbread castle fusing elements of edible construction with fairy-tale architecture. A slightly easier and less-picky project, too, for kids or those without model-building educations from architecture schools.