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LOS ANGELES

“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 mock the U.S. ideal

A 2006 survey of American Institute of Architects members shows that large science firms with more than 100 employees reported billings from between nations 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’sitting no unkind data, more U.S.-made windows, roofing systems, furnaces and other specialized materials are actuality shipped overseas for projects designed by Americans are built to U.S. construction standards, said Jim Haughey, an economist with Reed Construction Data, which tracks the construction toil.

“If you look at in what way countries are moving up the socio-economic ladder, some of the things they the whole of want is a car, a house, a nice view and air conditioning,” said Jeff Rossely, a Bahrain-based developer of shopping malls, resorts and residential communities in the Middle East.

The trend started during the betimes 1990s and has intensified in recent years because of the U.S. housing downturn. Firms that ventured abroad since that particular period say doing so has helped them sustain economic slowdowns in determinate markets.

It has also created opportunities to trace out on a grander and additional creative scale. At seasons, 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 despite roughly 200,000 residents in Egypt.

The archetype 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.

U.S. firms are behind an eco-friendly island connected to Shanghai by rail, and a new town territory in northern Indian loaded through luxury villas, apartments, shops, parks and schools.

Curiously, more of the developments overseas air and sound a lot like California suburbs marketed to rich customers who have spent term living in the U.S. or attracted to an U.S. suburban lifestyle.