The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Flip a Strip competition challenged designers around the country to re-imagine the suburban strip mall as an urban typology, proposing an alternative to the ubiquitous developments which have emerged as an economic response to a rapidly outward expanding residential market and the availability of inexpensive land.
The project site is located in Tempe, part of a nondescript commercial frontage along Broadway Road. Contrary to typical infill projects, which fill gaps in the urban fabric, the inherent context of the strip center calls for a different strategy—an intensification of existing sites, relying on programmatic variety. Urban fill condenses the metropolitan experience into a single site, bringing together a range of activities in order to engender a cross-pollination and hybridization of uses.
