As work in US lags, architects reproduce its suburbs overseas

LOS ANGELES - 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 US 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 architecture firms with more than 100 employees reported billings from international work doubled in four years. Meanwhile, billings in the United States this year dropped to the lowest point in the 12 years the survey has been conducted.

While there are no hard statistics available, more US-made windows, roofing systems, furnaces, and other specialized materials are being shipped overseas because projects designed by Americans are built to US 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 socioeconomic ladder, some of the things they all want are a car, a house, a nice view, and air conditioning."

The trend started during the early 1990s in the US housing downturn and has intensified in recent years. Firms that ventured abroad since that time say doing so has helped them weather economic slowdowns.

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 ecofriendly island connected to Shanghai by rail and a new township in northern Indian loaded with luxury villas, apartments, shops, parks, and schools.

Some developments overseas look and sound a lot like California suburbs marketed to affluent customers who have spent time living in the United States or attracted to a suburban lifestyle.

Feola's firm, which does 90 percent of its projects outside the United States and is best known for designing a shopping mall in Dubai with an indoor ski slope, was responsible for a development outside of Beijing.

Grassy front lawns and driveways lead to pastel-colored homes that mimic French, Italian, or Spanish styles. Customized kitchens, screening rooms, and 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.