Thinking Outside the Big Box

It’s time to consider an innovative approach to reusing outdated retail.

Cleveland, we need to address something.

As wonderful as it is to see new development in the region, we must also grapple with our existing building stock. We’re a shrinking city with vacant structures that lay dormant across northeast Ohio. We need to rethink their respective purposes.

I’m talking about the ugly stuff. Architectural junk. The vacant strip malls. The rusting warehouses. The boarded-up fast food joints. The vacant big-box retail stores. The stuff with no character or personality. What do we do with that? I believe we must begin to rethink these spaces — or else we will continue an unsustainable cycle of new construction and outgrowth — contributing to Cleveland’s sea of vacant structures.

During my graduate architecture degree program, I asked this question: How could we possibly imagine reusing buildings labeled as ugly and unimportant? Firstly, I thought about how to categorize these buildings. You know, the kind of “pass-through” buildings that you utilize only for practicalities — typically just large boxes of open space for various commercial tenants to rent.

Renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas wrote about this very concept in his 2002 article, Junkspace: “If space-junk is the human debris that litters the universe, junk-space is the residue mankind leaves on the planet.

The built product of modernization is not modern architecture but Junkspace. Junkspace is what remains after modernization has run its course or, more precisely, what coagulates while modernization is in progress, its fallout.”

In non architectural-jargon terms: The market creates such a fast turnaround for new space and architecture that there’s a sort of “fallout” that occurs in the process — which is “junkspace.” The demand for new, ground-up space is higher than the rate of occupying existing ones.

I decided to do something about this. During graduate school, I created a proposal to turn a vacant big-box store in Cleveland into affordable housing. It almost seems ironic, maybe even impossible: Big-box stores are infamous for large, open parking lots; open spaces atop concrete floor slabs and little architectural detail outside of large signage.

How can housing be retrofitted into an existing environment like this?

Let’s start with structure. Superstores are typically just concrete floor slabs with four walls and steel trusses running atop the high ceilings. Any sort of redevelopment needs to be economically feasible.

Housing should embrace the existing structure. It should really stay true to its superstore surroundings. It should act like the rows of merchandise shelving that typically occupy spaces like this, able to be constructed directly atop the store floor and be organized in an aisle-like manner. It should use those existing roof trusses as a framework for installing new skylights. It should use the long, boring exterior facades as a backdrop for new, simple, fun cladding systems.

A new housing typology, even whole neighborhoods, can be carved out of what was once an endless expanse of concrete and cash registers. We can and should conceive of new ways to rethink and redevelop our existing buildings.

These spaces have so many benefits. They are usually in desirable locations, are up to date regarding mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and they can be avenues to produce new space in a cost effective manner. This project could provide housing in a nice and modern environment but streamlined at a lower cost.

If we embrace the idea that big-box stores don’t have to be big-box stores, and parking lots don’t always have to be parking lots, I think we can inch closer to creating a better and more convalescent built environment for all of us — in Cleveland and beyond.

ATHLETICS // BY BOB SANDRICK