Switzerland may be the best place in the world to be a housecat.

They have freedom, autonomy—and their own cat-specific architecture. Be it on the side of a townhouse or apartment complex, custom-built ladders and ramps are designed so cats can come and go as they please.

German photographer and architecture aficionado Brigitte Schuster has documented many of these ladders in Bern, Switzerland, in her new book, Swiss Cat Ladders.

“When I moved to the city of Bern I was amazed,” she says. “It’s a way of showing the caretaking, I would say. We give the cat the freedom, and we also get the freedom as cat [owners] that we don’t need to be at home when our cats come home.”

Cat