We participated in a youth group discussion about why people were created. This is what I wrote while studying the topic beforehand.
--------------------

God made the earth for us, but He also created it for Him to inhabit.

Isaiah 45:18 -- "For thus says Yahweh, who created the heavens, He is God, who formed the earth and who made it. He Himself established it; He did not create it as emptiness -- He formed it for inhabiting. 'I am Yahweh and there is none besides Me.'"

Acts 17:26-28 -- "And He made from one man every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining their fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for Him and find Him. And indeed He is not far away from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets [men of Athens] have said: 'For we also are His offspring.'"

Colossians 1:16 -- "because all things in the heavens and on the earth were created by Him, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him,"

Genesis 1:26 -- "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

James 3:7-10 -- "For every species of animals and birds, of reptiles and sea creatures, is being tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being is able to tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the LORD and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so!"

Genesis 5:1-3 -- "This is the record of the generations of Adam. When God created Adam, He made him in the likeness of God. Male and female He created them. And He blessed them. And He called their name 'humankind' when they were created. And when Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he fathered a child in his likeness, according to his image. And he called his name Seth."

Genesis 1:28 -- "And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Our food was to be every plant yielding seed and every fruit with seed in it. All beasts were to eat green plants. We were to work and keep the Garden. We are made in His image, but what does that mean?

Then, there's this:
"For indeed a man ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man." -- 1 Corinthians 11:7-9

So, man looks like God and woman looks the same but was created in a different manner and for man's sake so he should not be alone. So, was man created for God's sake so He should not be alone? That would imply there was need, and I don't think He has need.

Mankind was made to inhabit the earth and subdue it. We were to have offspring. So, is that also how we were made in His likeness? Satan deviated from "life."

"The thief comes only so that he can steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

God gives, brings life, and creates. He builds up. I think another way we were designed to be like Him is to do the same -- give, bring life and His Light, create, and build up. It is what Jesus did while here, and it is what we are to do -- to be as He is and do as He does. We are performing our proper function when we give, create, build, and nurture. When we are in Christ, it is who we are. It is as it was meant to be in the Garden.

Adam had a bond with God, face-to-face, yet he sinned. Jesus had a face-to-face bond with God, His Father, then came to live with the same flesh barrier we have yet maintained that deep bond to the point He lived in perfection. That deep bond is what we are to strive for, long for, live for. Jesus showed us how and that it is possible through Him, as the breaker of the barrier and the giver of Holy Spirit. Because of what Jesus did, we may have access to God and come to adore Him as Jesus does and demonstrated for us with His whole earthly life on display.