commentFlip A Strip Competition Envisions a Better Future for Sprawl
Susan Kane, director of the Scottsdale, Arizona, Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), sees strip malls as a necessary if regrettable fact of life. “They are ubiquitous and familiar to the point of invisibility; they are the wallflowers of thousands of streetscapes that millions of people travel daily,” Kane says, adding, “I cannot grab a cup of coffee, buy a loaf of decent bread, or have a good ethnic meal without going to a strip mall.”
The MOS design, which took first prize in the Flip a Strip competition, envisions the construction of giant screens that improve air quality while generating biofuel feedstocks and electricity (top); The AEDS design, which took second prize, would include the construction of artists’ lofts above retail spaces (bottom).
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With the tag line “New Ideas for Old Strip Malls,” SMoCA is encouraging society to imagine a better version of the archetypal suburban building pattern. SMoCA’s Flip a Strip competition was designed to envision strip malls as a resource and as a building stock for future development. “With collective energy and creative design expertise, we know there are many ways to transcend the nondescript status quo of the strip mall—ways that are aesthetically compelling, economically feasible and communally smart,” according to the competition website.
Flip a Strip participants were asked to choose from among three actual strip malls in Phoenix, Arizona—“the quintessential American postwar metropolis,” according to SMoCA—and design an improvement based on “recycling, repurposing, reinvention, and rejuvenation,” not replacement. Recognizing the role that strip malls play in America’s social and economic landscape, the competition required that proposed solutions maintain existing retail activities. Entries were judged on their technical and economic viability as well as their architectural quality.
SMoCA received 95 entries to the Flip a Strip competition and awarded first prize to MOS, based in New Haven, Connecticut. The MOS entry, titled Urban Battery, is centered around prefabricated steel and glass structures that rise from the existing strip mall like giant movie screens. “The glass structure would function like a greenhouse,” according to the designers; algae growing inside would help clean the suburban air before being harvested as a biofuel feedstock. The structure would also generate electricity for the mall through photovoltaic panels as well as a series of wind turbines powered by rising hot air. A bike path and a community exercise area complete the design.
Second prize went to AEDS, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the entry Un-strip, which includes the construction of artists’ lofts above the present retail spaces in addition to the installation of green roofs and a robotic parking tower. Third place went to Aptum Architecture, of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Zurich, Switzerland. This entry, called Flipping the Strip, envisions a modular façade wrapped around the project site and a landscaped community area at the core.
More information about the competition, including other submittals, is online at www.flipastrip.org.
This article was produced by BuildingGreen, LLC.- www.buildinggreen.com
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