One of the most innovative design events, Architects for Animals® “Giving Shelter” exhibit, calls on Los Angeles’ top architects and designers to design, build and donate functional and one-of-a-kind outdoor dwellings for cats. This year’s event was a sell out and included 28 cat food bowls decorated by feline-loving celebrities—including Jay Leno, Charlize Theron, Beau Bridges, Elvira, William Shatner, Clint Eastwood, Tricia Helfer and Morgan Fairchild that were subsequently available for purchase. All proceeds went to benefit LA-based non-profit FixNation, which provides free spay/neuter services for homeless cats (stray, abandoned and feral felines.
“This year’s cat shelters were extraordinarily creative, and the designers put a great deal of time and thought into how cats would actually interact with the shelters,” says FixNation’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Karn Myers. “They are truly works of art with a practical application.”
Los Angeles is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of homeless felines, an estimated one to three million cats. FixNation is a model for successful Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and humane colony management programs across the country and around the world. Myers and her late husband, Mark Dodge, founded the organization 10 years ago to provide a more effective and compassionate alternative to mass euthanasia.
Participating design firms this year included Abramson Teiger Architects; d3architecture; ES-EN-EM; CallisonRTKL; HKS; HOK; Perkins + Will; Knowhow Shop; Kollin Altomare Architects; RNL now Stantec; Standard Architecture | Design; and a collaborative project from Formation Association, Terremoto Landscape and Arktura.
You can learn more about Fixnation here:
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