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Architects create American-style suburbs overseas
Dec 26 01:01 PM US/Eastern
By DAISY NGUYEN
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Architect Andy Feola keeps running into Southern
California colleagues in some of the world's most exotic locations -
from the Egyptian desert to China to Azerbaijan.
"We'll scratch our heads and ask 'Why are you here?'" said Feola,
president of F+A Architects in Pasadena. "Well, I'm here for the same
reasons you're here."
A growing number of architects and urban planners are finding work
overseas as the domestic real estate slump persists. An emerging
affluent class abroad is drawn to suburbs with U.S. names that mimic
the American ideal - down to the master bathroom and tree-lined
sidewalk.
A 2006 survey of American Institute of Architects members shows that
large architecture firms with more than 100 employees reported
billings from international work doubled in four years. Meanwhile,
billings in the U.S. this year dropped to the lowest point in the 12
years the survey has been conducted.
While there's no hard data, more American-made windows, roofing
systems, furnaces and other specialized materials are being shipped
overseas because projects designed by Americans are built to
U.S. construction standards, said Jim Haughey, an economist with Reed
Construction Data, which tracks the construction industry.
"The English concept of a man's home is his castle is true in most
parts of Asia, the Mideast and Eastern Europe," said Jeff Rossely, a
Bahrain-based developer of shopping malls, resorts and residential
communities in the Middle East. "If you look at how countries are
moving up the socio-economic ladder, some of the things they all want
is a car, a house, a nice view and air conditioning."
The trend started during the early 1990s U.S. housing downturn and has
intensified in recent years. Firms that ventured abroad since that
time say doing so has helped them weather economic slowdowns in
certain markets.
It has also created opportunities to design on a grander and more
creative scale. At times, architects are creating huge master-planned
communities encompassing a mix of single-family homes with high rises,
parks and shopping centers. Feola's firm is designing a shopping and
entertainment complex for New Cairo, a metropolis built from scratch
for roughly 200,000 residents in Egypt. The idea is to avoid some of
the mistakes of the past and create a mixed-use environment where
people rely less on their car to get to shops and services.
American firms are behind an eco-friendly island connected to Shanghai
by rail, and a new township in northern Indian loaded with luxury
villas, apartments, shops, parks and schools.
Curiously, some of the developments overseas look and sound a lot like
California suburbs marketed to affluent customers who have spent time
living in the U.S. or attracted to an American suburban lifestyle.
Feola's firm, which does 90 percent of its projects outside the
U.S. and is best known for designing a shopping mall in Dubai with an
indoor ski slope, was responsible for a development outside of Beijing
called Napa Valley that has little resemblance to the winemaking
region.
Grassy front lawns and driveways lead to pastel-colored homes that
mimic French, Italian or Spanish architectural styles. Customized
kitchens, screening rooms and basement wine cellars are very different
from Chairman Mao's vision of communal living.
"It's hard to tell you're not in Southern California," Feola said.
Another Beijing suburb is aptly named Orange County, which sold out
within days of opening in 2002. Chinese developers hired Newport Beach
firm Bassenian Lagoni to make a replica of homes they saw south of Los
Angeles. With the eerie resemblance to the American suburb, critics
derided the homes as "McMansions."
"It's too bad that we as Americans are turning away from suburban
sprawl as Asia adopts it," said Robert Fishman, a professor of
architecture and urban planning at the University of Michigan.
Architect Aram Bassenian, whose Mediterranean-style homes have come to
define California's ritzy suburbs, contends that architects shouldn't
shoulder all the blame. California borrows ideas from elsewhere, and
for centuries cities have been designed or influenced by outsiders.
Many advances in green home design that were developed in the U.S. are
being introduced overseas, including better insulation or ventilation
to rely less on fossil fuels for heating and air conditioning.
To make the homes fit with the local culture, outdoor kitchens are
added in Asia for frying food, and trellises are installed to protect
Mediterranean homes from intense sunlight.
"We don't create the demand, we respond to people's needs for shelter,
for housing," Bassenian said.
Despite criticism, suburban communities are sprouting in Latin
America, North Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe. To promote
developments that won't deplete natural resources, land use experts at
the Urban Land Institute has been taking foreign groups on "study
tours" of U.S. communities and recently opened an education center in
the United Arab Emirates.
Developers say they look to American architects because they have a
track record of designing successful shopping malls, resorts and other
high-end projects.
Bassenian said he doesn't take lightly the task of creating a built-in
environment for people millions of miles away.
"It is both a daunting responsibility as well as an incredible
privilege to think that what we do here will shape how somebody lives
around the world," Bassenian said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Architects create American-style suburbs overseas
Dec 26 01:01 PM US/Eastern
By DAISY NGUYEN
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Architect Andy Feola keeps running into Southern
California colleagues in some of the world's most exotic locations -
from the Egyptian desert to China to Azerbaijan.
"We'll scratch our heads and ask 'Why are you here?'" said Feola,
president of F+A Architects in Pasadena. "Well, I'm here for the same
reasons you're here."
A growing number of architects and urban planners are finding work
overseas as the domestic real estate slump persists. An emerging
affluent class abroad is drawn to suburbs with U.S. names that mimic
the American ideal - down to the master bathroom and tree-lined
sidewalk.
A 2006 survey of American Institute of Architects members shows that
large architecture firms with more than 100 employees reported
billings from international work doubled in four years. Meanwhile,
billings in the U.S. this year dropped to the lowest point in the 12
years the survey has been conducted.
While there's no hard data, more American-made windows, roofing
systems, furnaces and other specialized materials are being shipped
overseas because projects designed by Americans are built to
U.S. construction standards, said Jim Haughey, an economist with Reed
Construction Data, which tracks the construction industry.
"The English concept of a man's home is his castle is true in most
parts of Asia, the Mideast and Eastern Europe," said Jeff Rossely, a
Bahrain-based developer of shopping malls, resorts and residential
communities in the Middle East. "If you look at how countries are
moving up the socio-economic ladder, some of the things they all want
is a car, a house, a nice view and air conditioning."
The trend started during the early 1990s U.S. housing downturn and has
intensified in recent years. Firms that ventured abroad since that
time say doing so has helped them weather economic slowdowns in
certain markets.
It has also created opportunities to design on a grander and more
creative scale. At times, architects are creating huge master-planned
communities encompassing a mix of single-family homes with high rises,
parks and shopping centers. Feola's firm is designing a shopping and
entertainment complex for New Cairo, a metropolis built from scratch
for roughly 200,000 residents in Egypt. The idea is to avoid some of
the mistakes of the past and create a mixed-use environment where
people rely less on their car to get to shops and services.
American firms are behind an eco-friendly island connected to Shanghai
by rail, and a new township in northern Indian loaded with luxury
villas, apartments, shops, parks and schools.
Curiously, some of the developments overseas look and sound a lot like
California suburbs marketed to affluent customers who have spent time
living in the U.S. or attracted to an American suburban lifestyle.
Feola's firm, which does 90 percent of its projects outside the
U.S. and is best known for designing a shopping mall in Dubai with an
indoor ski slope, was responsible for a development outside of Beijing
called Napa Valley that has little resemblance to the winemaking
region.
Grassy front lawns and driveways lead to pastel-colored homes that
mimic French, Italian or Spanish architectural styles. Customized
kitchens, screening rooms and basement wine cellars are very different
from Chairman Mao's vision of communal living.
"It's hard to tell you're not in Southern California," Feola said.
Another Beijing suburb is aptly named Orange County, which sold out
within days of opening in 2002. Chinese developers hired Newport Beach
firm Bassenian Lagoni to make a replica of homes they saw south of Los
Angeles. With the eerie resemblance to the American suburb, critics
derided the homes as "McMansions."
"It's too bad that we as Americans are turning away from suburban
sprawl as Asia adopts it," said Robert Fishman, a professor of
architecture and urban planning at the University of Michigan.
Architect Aram Bassenian, whose Mediterranean-style homes have come to
define California's ritzy suburbs, contends that architects shouldn't
shoulder all the blame. California borrows ideas from elsewhere, and
for centuries cities have been designed or influenced by outsiders.
Many advances in green home design that were developed in the U.S. are
being introduced overseas, including better insulation or ventilation
to rely less on fossil fuels for heating and air conditioning.
To make the homes fit with the local culture, outdoor kitchens are
added in Asia for frying food, and trellises are installed to protect
Mediterranean homes from intense sunlight.
"We don't create the demand, we respond to people's needs for shelter,
for housing," Bassenian said.
Despite criticism, suburban communities are sprouting in Latin
America, North Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe. To promote
developments that won't deplete natural resources, land use experts at
the Urban Land Institute has been taking foreign groups on "study
tours" of U.S. communities and recently opened an education center in
the United Arab Emirates.
Developers say they look to American architects because they have a
track record of designing successful shopping malls, resorts and other
high-end projects.
Bassenian said he doesn't take lightly the task of creating a built-in
environment for people millions of miles away.
"It is both a daunting responsibility as well as an incredible
privilege to think that what we do here will shape how somebody lives
around the world," Bassenian said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.