This desire to reinvent the car garage is giving rise to all sorts of extravagances.

Chinese agency O-office Architects has transformed a former textile factory in Shenzhen into a modern home with an Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale in the middle. In the Netherlands, Studio OXL transformed a carpenter’s workshop into a spacious loft. The owner wanted to be able to display their 2008 Tesla Roadster in their living room, so the architectural firm decided to keep the former entryway of the factory intact.

Other architects choose to incorporate ramps or even elevators into the property designs, so that car enthusiasts can park their finest models wherever they please — whether that means in the living room or even on a mezzanine, as is the case in a 2019 three-story home, designed by Sam Burch Architect.

The home, which has a garage for up to 15 vehicles, is equipped with an elevator so the owner can display his Porsches and BMWs on any floor. However, the owners did note on the Texas studio’s website that they have to “make sure to not crash any vehicles through any of the large glass walls.”

Related: The Supercar Capsule: a storage solution that shows off your prized vehicles

While the term ‘carchitecture’ is relatively recent, the concept on which it is based is not new. It even fascinated famous 20th century architects such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, who owned more than 80 cars during his lifetime. This enthusiast even declared that “a car is not a horse, and it doesn’t need a barn.” So it’s not surprising that some elements of the New York car showroom he built in 1954 are reminiscent of the Guggenheim Museum, his most famous building.

“The word ‘carchitecture’ is about the obsession of architects about cars, but also about car design that has a link to architecture,” Thijs Demeulemeester, journalist and co-author of the book “Carchitecture: Houses with horsepower,” told Penta.

Some car manufacturers have grasped this and offer top customers a service that entails designing exceptional, customized spaces for storing their vehicles. This is the case with Aston Martin. Since 2019, the British group has been offering the “Automotive Galleries and Lairs” service in order to take “the Aston Martin experience” even further, in the words of Marek Reichman, executive vice president and chief creative director. “For the car enthusiast, the garage is as important as the rest of the house. We want to take Aston Martin ownership to the next level, and a bespoke auto gallery … can help our customers do that,” he said in a statement at the time of the service’s launch.

More recently, the Aston Martin Design team has taken the concept of “carchitecture” to the extreme by designing an 800-square-meter property in the heart of the New York countryside with the help of S3 Architecture. The main entrance of this house with multiple windows is through a gallery-garage, which allows the owner of the place to expose their DB11, V12 Vanquish and Valkyrie like any work of art.

Related: Get Aston Martin’s design knowhow in a private residence near you