Casey Jones and Reed Kroloff
Principals, Jones Kroloff

What we learned
Long after the late nights preparing these entries, or the nervous excitement of packaging them up and sending them off, the giddy anticipation of unpacking each one or the critical review of the jurors, what endures is the quality of ideas that a competition generates. While the specifics of any one entry may fade, the larger themes endure, defined by the mental snapshots we take away.

In organizing Flip a Strip, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art sought to tackle the very real problem of the declining strip shopping center. The issues associated with this now-ubiquitous 20th-century building type are complex—far more so than their simple one-story structures imply. Entrants had to grapple with traffic engineering, architectural engineering, programming, signage, advertising, energy usage, razor-thin budgets, zoning restrictions and building codes. Some did so handily. Others clearly struggled. Some challenge us to think outside our comfort zone and explore ideas that may seem visionary today, but could be commonplace a decade from now.

Five themes readily emerge from 95 entries received in the competition. They are:

● Go green. Whether it was the introduction of a massive algae wall designed to harvest solar energy or a densely planted shade structure covering the parking lot, a number of entries looked for opportunities to reap environmental benefits from the standard strip mall.

● Introduce more activity. Competition entrants tried to kick things up a notch at these under-populated and under-utilized facilities by introducing a broader range of uses: ground-floor retail was supplemented by a rooftop sports park; nighttime uses were proposed to supplement daytime uses and help enliven these activity islands round-the-clock; gardens and trails were introduced to give people an excuse to linger beyond their purchases.

● Think outside the box. While most strip shopping centers now offer the same combination of big-box retailers, a number of entries proposed new, specialized uses that would keep these three sites from becoming generic. The most extreme examples—appearing in several submissions—were "twilight centers," offering some mix of medical care and, ultimately, mortuary services for the elderly.

● Be Bold. You can’t get attention without being louder, brighter and flashier. Drive down almost any commercial strip today and your vista is a sea of small signs floating above an expanse of low-rise buildings and parking lots. The uniformity of it all makes it hard for one retailer or one strip center to distinguish itself from another. The solution: be bolder. Construct a signage wall at the perimeter of your site, paint your buildings bright colors, erect a parking tower. Do whatever it takes to make yourself a landmark.

● Change is good: you can’t get there from here. One of the things that many of the competition entries point out is that a number of the limitations facing these existing strip shopping centers are imposed by existing zoning codes. Signage dimensions, tenant mixes, building heights and the quantity of parking are often locked in by zoning codes. Rethinking these regulations can open up a world of opportunities.

These ideas—and the hundreds of others put forth in this competition—are at once a celebration and a critique of the ubiquitous strip mall. A uniquely 20th-century building type, the strip mall is the byproduct of America’s love affair with the automobile, a dalliance that spawned not just a new form of retail, but also housing, commerce and industry.

For decades, designers, developers, city planning officials and consumers have been locked in a battle over how best to live in the modern age. Some groups see the auto-centric strip malls profiled in this competition as the root of many contemporary evils, urging a return to historic downtown commercial cores. Others see these centers as well-established facets of contemporary life and fertile ground for more diverse offerings and richer retail experiences.

Clearly, not all strip malls are created equal. Though some offer a ticket to economic prosperity for the landowners, not all survive changing times and tastes. Neighborhoods trend up and down; retailing evolves; and cities are regularly left with declining or deserted strip centers that are visual eyesores. This competition takes on the challenge and tackles those issues head on, proposing real and visionary solutions.