This year we saw a bunch of architecture in the fantasy realm, and as always, it's tough to decide which is more exciting: The concepts, or the out-there structures that some people were actually crazy enough to build.

Nowhere was that more true than in The Original, Real-Life Dystopian Cityscape of Kowloon Walled City, and the Artwork It Inspired:

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Architecture firm NBBJ proposed this Dual Skyscraper Design that "Erases" Shadows Between Them:

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Going even sexier, we saw some Beautiful Architectural Visualizations from Mir:

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What about architecture in outer space? We went back to the '70s to check out some Space Colony Form Factors, Part 1: Bernal Spheres.

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Bernal's globe shape not doing it for you? There's always Space Colony Form Factors, Part 2: O'Neill Cylinders.

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For those of you that are hard to satisfy, maybe you'd prefer the torii or gi-normous Bishop's Rings in Space Colony Form Factors, Part 3: The Stanford Torus and Beyond.

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Back on Earth, a guy named Jono Williams apparently couldn't decide between globe and cylinder either. So as we saw in Designer/Engineer Builds Steel Treehouse—and the Tree to Hold It, he went for both.

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in the realm of holy-cow-they-really-built-this architecture, we were wowed by Balinese design/build firm Ibuku's Stunning Six-Story Bamboo Luxury Homes (and Other Structures):

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Scandinavia doesn't get the sunlight that Bali does, so one couple in Sweden has made the most of solar harvesting by building An Eco-Friendly House Wrapped Inside a Larger Glass House:

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Finally, one place that gets no sunlight at all is an underground parking garage. But we saw a rather novel, light-flooded one in Architecture Firm Designs Batcave-Inspired Carpark, Complete with Hidden Entrance, Under This Stately Manse.

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More from Core77's 2015 Year in Review

• 15 of Your Favorite Posts from 2015

• The Coming Age of Automobility and What It Means for Designers

• 10 Clever, Innovative or Bizarre Design Processes from 2015

Material News You Can Use

• 10 Brilliant and Beautiful Objects from Our 'Designing Women' Series

• 12 Projects to Inspire Future Living

• Design Entrepreneurs Were Killing it in 2015

• The Year in Furniture Designs, Part 1: The Beautiful, the Innovative and the Unusual

• The Year in Furniture Designs, Part 2: Design/Build Techniques and Learning from the Past and Present

• 15 Tools and Tool-Based Projects We Loved in 2015

• 8 New Types of Digital Fabrication Machines

• 17 Random and Amazing Phenomena We Saw This Year

• The Best Product Design GIFs of 2015