exterior of Pet Resource Center at night

January 31, 2024

This Animal Shelter Raises the Bar for Design

2023 Best of Year Winner for Social Impact

Most animal shelters are filled with cages and kennels. But cats and dogs can tend to decline when contained in such conditions. RA-DA decided there had to be a better way. The result, one of several projects in the firm’s animal care–facility portfolio and its second for the nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society, which is working toward no-kill by 2025, is what founder/principal Rania Alomar is calling the “shelter of the future.” Encompassing 20,000 square feet and evoking the old barns scattered on fields in this predominantly rural area, the Pet Resource Center in Bentonville, Arkansas is divided into a medical wing and a community-focused wing. The latter has creatively conceived areas for animals to roam and for fun pet-fostering events so that they are rehomed quickly. Doggie yoga classes or knitting with kittens, anyone?

See Interior Design’s Best of Year Winners and Honorees

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2025 WINNERS

an open area for animals to play in the Pet Resource Center

an orange dining area in the Pet Resource Center

PROJECT TEAM

RA-DA: rania alomar.

Projects
Ippolito Fleitz Group Entices Shoppers To China’s MixC Mall
MixC Mall by Ippolito Fleitz Group revives in-person shopping with shimmering metal panels and a radiant lunar orb sculpture, exuding modern glamor.
Projects
This Brookville, New York Home Channels Parisian Chic
Having created a beach house for this same client, Miami-based firm Britto Charette was tasked with giving their main residence a contemporary makeover.
Projects
Inside An Artful Hotel in Fort Worth By Rottet Studio
Gallery-esque walls, Calacatta Vision marble, and white oak serve as canvases to a large art collection in the Crescent Hotel redesign by Rottet Studio.