Ah ’tis the season for haunted houses, gingerbread houses and more. Every year, artists amaze us with their ingenuity as they recreate fabulous architecture out of fun materials, some at a small scale and others at a livable scale. Here’s a roundup of our favorites:

Victorian Houses of Lego by Mike Doyle

Artist Mike Doyle made this Victorian House entitled “Lego: Victorian on a Mud Heap” out of 110,000 to 130,000 pieces of Legos in black, white, dark, light bluish gray, clear transparent and black transparent colors. No additional materials were used besides Legos and no Lego pieces were cut. It took him about 600 hours to build. His website shows the making of process. with closeups.

Built of the same materials, this crumbling Victorian house took 50,000-60,000 pieces and 450 hours to build. Doyle has most recently been working on a fantasy world called The Contact Series, made of 200,000 pieces.

Brownstone Gingerbread Block by Renee Baumann

Renee Baumann’s gingerbread brownstone. Image via Kitchen Table Scraps. 

Two years ago, Brooklyn resident Renee Baumann made a brownstone out of gingerbread. It was so popular, last year she created an entire Brooklyn block of gingerbread with the help of friends and volunteers. Here’s to hoping she’ll reprise the project again this winter.

House Facade Made Entirely of Vintage Windows

This is the home of photographer Nick Olson and designer Lilah Horwitz in West Virginia. They quit their jobs, road tripped to find these antique windows from flea markets, antique shops and garage sales. Here’s a video about the project and the house.

Shipping Container House in Williamsburg

This shipping container house in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is made of 6 containers, purchased at $1500 each, and insulated with NASA ceramic infused paint. We love what the owner has done with the materials, enabling balconies, natural light and patio spaces.

Houses Made of Glass Bottles

This house made of glass bottle was built by an NGO in Nigeria called the Development Association for Renewable Energies (DARE). It’s apparently bulletproof, fireproof, stays cool naturally and earthquakr resistant, according to Inhabitat. Other houses built from bottles include ones made of Heineken beer bottles and one in Argentina made of PET bottles and Tetra Pak cartons.

Tower Made of 30,000 Books

In Buenos Aires, Argentinian artist Marta Minujin made an 82-foot tower built of 30,000 books written in languages all around the world in honor of the city’s designation as 2011 World Book Capital.

3D Printed House in Amsterdam

This building of 3D printed plastic is in the works for sometime at the end of this year. Using a giant special printer called KamerMaker (“roommaker” in Dutch) the Dutch firm DUS Architects is attempting to construct a life-size house from parts of biodegradable printed plastic along the Buiksloter canal in Amsterdam.

But perhaps the real future are open source building tools like Selfbb and Wikihouse, which provides downloadable models that can be created easily CNC machines.

If you’re in NYC, do check out the unique exhibition of sculptures made of canned food at Brookfield Place. Get in touch with the author @untappedmich.