Un-strip, 2008

Award of Excellence Winner (2nd)

Un-strip, 2008
AEDS Ammar Eloueini

New Orleans, Louisiana
Site: Scottsdale: 2200 N. Scottsdale Road (near Oak Street)
Design team: Ammar Eloueini, Megan Cook, Gregoire Diehl, Melissa Urcan, Félix Wetzstein, Marcel Wisznia (www.digit-all.net)
Estimated construction cost: retail spaces and lofts: $3.5 million; parking tower: $3 million
Features: robotic parking, artists' lofts, public art, green roof, improved access

Un-strip admits that it is most unlikely we will abandon the convenience of our cars anytime soon to fully embrace the optimistic "new urban" smart-growth solutions of bike paths and walkways. Instead, the project addresses the problem of parking boldly and directly, as a central feature. It reorganizes the strip mall in four phases, with major landscaping revisions incorporated in each: revising current parking, enhancing present retail, adding a second story of artists' loft housing and—in a grand finale—adding a robotic, vertical parking structure. In all, the project increases the footprint of retail and "green" on the site, reduces the footprint of parking and introduces many energy-saving features.

AEDS suggests putting a robotic parking tower by the outlying pad of the strip center, which would increase the available parking spaces by 52% and eliminate the heat-generating island of the surface lot. Robotic parking structures have been used in Europe and Asia for many years: the first of a handful in the United States opened in 2004 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Drivers leave their cars on a pallet that is mechanically stacked into a storage tower. The systems reduce the runoff and carbon emissions from traditional garages as well optimizing land use. In this plan, the parking tower also becomes a presentation screen for rotating public-art projects.

AEDS plans to line the street-level walkways with new one-story retail corridors, featuring green roofs that collect runoff water to feed the landscaping below. These green roofs also provide shade and a thermal barrier from the sun: they, too, become a raised deck of green space for the live/work housing above the retail zone. Residents are thus treated to expansive views of the surrounding mountains and a park of native, low-water desert plants. Un-strip establishes multiple points of pedestrian and car access and newly connects the commercial zone with the residential neighborhood to its west.


Un-strip, 2008 Award of Excellence Winner (2nd) Un-strip, 2008 AEDS Ammar Eloueini New Orleans, Louisiana Site: Scottsdale: 2200 N. Scottsdale Road (near Oak Street) Design team: Ammar Eloueini, Megan Cook, Gregoire Diehl, Melissa Urcan, Félix Wetzstein, Marcel Wisznia (www.digit-all.net) Estimated construction cost: retail spaces and lofts: $3.5 million; parking tower: $3 million Features: robotic parking, artists' lofts, public art, green roof, improved access Un-strip admits that it is most unlikely we will abandon the convenience of our cars anytime soon to fully embrace the optimistic "new urban" smart-growth solutions of bike paths and walkways. Instead, the project addresses the problem of parking boldly and directly, as a central feature. It reorganizes the strip mall in four phases, with major landscaping revisions incorporated in each: revising current parking, enhancing present retail, adding a second story of artists' loft housing and—in a grand finale—adding a robotic, vertical parking structure. In all, the project increases the footprint of retail and "green" on the site, reduces the footprint of parking and introduces many energy-saving features. AEDS suggests putting a robotic parking tower by the outlying pad of the strip center, which would increase the available parking spaces by 52% and eliminate the heat-generating island of the surface lot. Robotic parking structures have been used in Europe and Asia for many years: the first of a handful in the United States opened in 2004 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Drivers leave their cars on a pallet that is mechanically stacked into a storage tower. The systems reduce the runoff and carbon emissions from traditional garages as well optimizing land use. In this plan, the parking tower also becomes a presentation screen for rotating public-art projects. AEDS plans to line the street-level walkways with new one-story retail corridors, featuring green roofs that collect runoff water to feed the landscaping below. These green roofs also provide shade and a thermal barrier from the sun: they, too, become a raised deck of green space for the live/work housing above the retail zone. Residents are thus treated to expansive views of the surrounding mountains and a park of native, low-water desert plants. Un-strip establishes multiple points of pedestrian and car access and newly connects the commercial zone with the residential neighborhood to its west.

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Competition Board A	Competition Board B	Project Description	Submitted Technical Specification Form
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