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Sunday, 30 December 2007 | Levent OZLER
Flip a Strip: National Architectural Design Competition at SMoCA
The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] announces a major design competition and public exhibition, "Flip a Strip." This innovative project will foster creative, new visions for the renovation of the small-scale strip shopping plazas that line the streets of this metropolitan area-and virtually every suburban zone in the country. (Note: this is an idea-generating competition, not a design/build project.) "Flip a Strip" continues SMoCA's commitment to creating a forum for public issues of both local and national importance and to generating ideas that better the quality of civic life.
In oversupply yet vastly underused, such strip plazas (built a generation ago) define the streetscapes of many towns. Many are dilapidated eyesores. Yet many are home to small restaurants, sole proprietorships and mom-and-pop businesses that can be wonderfully unique, entrepreneurial concerns, highly responsive to community needs. Strip malls breed strange and wonderful bedfellows (a yoga studio next to pet grooming next to a mattress store, for example), yet are plagued by interspersed vacant storefronts and the most generic of designs.
Ringed by parking and adjacent to thriving neighborhoods, these strip malls have great potential for adaptive re-use and architectural upgrades. They are an undervalued and neglected building stock. This competition will look at options for making strip malls economically viable, aesthetically interesting and communally meaningful.
Competition Advisors
Jones Kroloff design services is the competition advisor. Led by Casey Jones (formerly of the U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program and a founder of Van Alen Institute, an architecture and urban-design research center) and Reed Kroloff (director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum, former editor-in-chief of Architecture magazine and a Phoenix native), the firm has managed many of the recent major architectural competitions across the country, including: Design the High Line in New York; the September 11th Memorial Competition for the Pentagon; the Brad Pitt / Global Green Sustainable Design Competition for New Orleans; the Jose Vasconcuelos National Library of Mexico; and the Motown Center for Detroit, MI. Jones Kroloff is known internationally for its vast knowledge of both emerging and established architects and its expertise in managing complex competitions that yield functional and forward-thinking results.
Jury
The Design Jury for the competition will reward three monetary prizes. The Design Jury includes Aaron Betsky, director, Cincinnati Art Museum, former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam and former curator of architecture, design and digital projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Julie Eizenberg, founding principal of Konig Eizenberg Architecture in Santa Monica, California, recognized for her expertise on cities, non-profit agencies, educational institutions and private development; Merrill Elam, partner, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects in Atlanta, whose distinguished career includes numerous AIA awards, visiting professorships and extensive jury service, as well as business management expertise; Richard E. Eribes, former dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona, Tucson, an expert in urban design and environmental perception, housing and public policy and the first director of the Center for Urban Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe; and Grady Gammage, Jr., partner, Gammage & Burnham, Phoenix, an expert in land-use regulation and a lawyer for development projects such as master-planned communities, high-rise buildings, regional shopping centers and subdivisions, as well as senior research fellow at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy and adjunct professor at the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Casey Jones states, "This mix of professionals-a cultural critic, an academic, a lawyer, and two architects both with real experience with issues of this type and all experts in their field-is the perfect group to weigh-in on this issue and provide direction." Submittals will also be reviewed by a preliminary technical jury of developers, urban planners and public participants.
Process
The competition is a hybrid, both open and invitational, with a nominal registration fee of $60. Participants must be professional architects with at least five years professional experience. Participants can select one model site from among three sites that have been submitted by city planners from the municipalities of Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona.
Specifications and detailed information will be available through the competition/registration web site http://www.flipastrip.org, which launches January 5, 2008.
Deadline
Submissions must be received by mail at SMoCA by March 31, 2008.
Community Advisory Committee
David Allen, Trevor Barger, David Barnett, Geoff Beer, George Bosworth, Chris Camberlango, Mike Ebert, Nan Ellin, Greg Esser, Jerry Foster, David Lacy, Scott Lyon, Jim McPherson, Mike Medici , Bill Nassikas, Scott O'Connor, Brian Polachek, Amy Silverman, Steve Steinberg, David Tyda, Charles Walker and Cyd West.
The Exhibition
The project is curated by Susan Krane, director, SMoCA. Approximately ten proposals will be selected for extended presentation in the exhibition, which will open at SMoCA in October 2008 and be on view through January 2009. Many of the other submissions will be exhibited as running projections in the exhibition.
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