Three Wrong Strip Malls
2023 | Chicago, IL
We take strip malls for granted. They flourish because they are cheap to build. As a result, the typology has never set foot in the architectural canon. This project scrutinizes the suburban typology and explores new architectural possibilities besides the status quo.
Strip malls are often a straight line, L-shape, or U-shape in plan. They don’t have enclosed walkways linking the stores. A row of stores is managed as a coherent retail entity with on-site parking in its front that interfaces with the visitor. There is a distinctive front and back. The front communicates with signs to passenger cars. The back speaks utility to dumpsters and delivery trucks. From the photographs of a correct strip mall, ornaments, decorations, and architectural mistakes are already existing on the front to attract attention.
The wrong strip malls explore the switcheroo of the building type and exaggerate the existing. Presented here are three scenarios:
Wrong Strip Mall 1:
The front and the back are flipped. There are too many window frames. Window frames are ornaments.
Wrong Strip Mall 2:
The front and the back are blended. CMU blocks form an apex. Metal conduits are sometimes functional. Signages are shadows.
Wrong Strip Mall 3:
The front and the back are seen at the same time. Galvanized pipes are furnitures and flag poles. Wood siding cladded walls are too thin. Signages are metal flashing.
Ultimately, this project attempts to explore two related architectural possibilities. One is a new sensibility and organization that emerges when you blur the distinction between the front and the back of a building. The other is that strange and exotic architecture can be born of wrong and excessive uses of common materials, like using galvanized pipes as ornaments.
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Design Critic: Paul Andersen
Selected Project, UIC SoA Year End Show
Graduate research studio, University of Illinois at Chicago