Farooq Ameen Associates is an international architecture and urban design firm with projects in USA, Germany and Asia. Award winning designs for architecture, urban design, planning, interiors and creative strategies include housing, community and cultural centers, libraries, schools and retail projects.



DOWNTOWN HOMELESS DROP IN CENTER
Los Angeles, USA

The project, an 8,500-square-foot building with a 6,500-square-foot courtyard, constitutes a prototype for offering the homeless the services they need. It is a place of respite that includes 32 beds (24 for men and 8 for women and families), medical services counseling, shower and laundry facilities, and a clubhouse in which to watch TV or play games. A portico helps define additional sleeping space outdoors.

The Downtown Center was conceived, advocated and designed as a unique collaborative effort between the Architect, the developer (SRO Housing), the client (LA Homeless Services Authority), the manager (Volunteers of America) and the users (homeless individuals). The Center has successfully engaged the homeless in an active process of re-integration in the heart of skid row.

The Center is based on the notion that the making of community spirit is unleashed in a typology of space that evokes assembly. Creating an outdoor "room" or courtyard is premised in the expectation that homeless individuals coming together away from the streets will be empowered to re-invent a sense of community for themselves in this space of respite. The courtyard is articulated by the four envelopes or walls gifted by the three buildings and the "fence" at San Julian Street. Each of these walls/envelopes evokes "colonnades" defining an "agora". The envelopes define but are transparent entities that allow both closure as well as connection.



REVITALIZATION OF HISTORIC DISTRICT
Weimar, Germany














INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL CENTER OF ARTS
New Delhi, India







Chetana-REIT School of Architecture
Dhaka, Bangladesh





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