It’ll come as no surprise that our environments shape and affect us. Not just physically but mentally and emotionally, too. Overstimulation can be exhausting. Meanwhile, gray, drab, boring, purely functionalist surroundings can be extremely demotivating. On the flip side, we can feel inspired by truly aesthetic works of art, nature, user-friendly urban design decisions, and architects who see the need for balance between beauty and function, not just the latter. How you build and design cities matters.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, over half of the world’s population lives in cities, and this number will only increase in the future. “Living in urban areas has been associated with increased risk for mental disorders, including anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging has identified changes in the brain indicating that urban upbringing and city living are linked to social stress processing.”

The APA states that city living is linked to worse air pollution, increased noise, crime, social inequality, stress from sensory overload, and a lack of open space. On the flip side, cities can also provide various career opportunities, better education, proper healthcare, and social interaction.

In the meantime, one study noted that urbanization brings with it social, economic, and psychological changes. Urbanization affects mental health via increased stressors from polluted and overcrowded environments, less social support, and higher levels of violence.

The sprawling architecture subreddit—which we can’t directly name here because internet culture has changed a ton since the online community was founded in 2011—currently has a following of 2.1 million members.

This year, the online community celebrated its 13th birthday. And it’s incredibly likely that they’ll be having more of those in the future.

It’s not hard to see why so many people are such big fans of the online group. For one, it’s not like buildings as a genre are suddenly going to disappear: architecture is a core part of human life and it’s always going to be important, no matter if we’re building space elevators or designing affordable housing.

Furthermore—and this is key, we think—the photos are incredibly beautiful to look at. With so much content and information being produced, posted, shared, and reshared every single day on the internet, it’s easy to get lost in the tide.

However, photos as aesthetic as these ones are hard to miss. They stand out from the crowd, in the best possible way.

The subreddit mainly focuses on individual images of buildings, not cities, skylines, or landscapes. If you come across a great photo that you’d like to share, be sure to include at least a smidgen of context about the place.

For instance, you could mention the location and the name of the building. That way, your audience will find it easier to do research about the place or even put it on their bucket lists of places to visit.

If you’re not sure of the location, do a bit of research to find it. Google Reverse Image Search is fantastic for this! If you took the photo yourself, be sure to tag it as original content (aka OC).

Meanwhile, if you know the original photographer/source, be sure to mention it. Members are also encouraged to post the resolution of the photo.

Even though you’re allowed to repost photos that have already been shared on the sub, the original pic should be at least 3 months old. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be in the top 100 submissions of all time.

This helps keep the flow of the content fresh for everyone involved. No matter how beautiful a building might be, anyone would get tired of looking at it from the same angle hundreds of times in a row.

The friendly moderators running the whole show have created a detailed and extensive FAQ that should help anyone new get to grips with the culture and rules of the community.

There’s a lot of technical stuff there regarding posting, hosting, and linking that should help streamline things for everyone.

We’re very curious to hear which buildings were your favorite ones, dear Pandas. If you have a moment, scroll down to the comments to share your thoughts. Have you visited any of these buildings in person?

What kinds of architectural styles do you like the most? What do you think it would take for modern architects to move past the bland designs many of them focus on these days? Let us know!