Tasked with re-approaching models from previous assignments: a pompous alpaca made of cheer pom poms, a cheeky doorstop made of velvet and faux veneers, a creepy seashell made of sticky hands and acrylic, and a spring rider that combines all of these elements, this proposal reinterprets and combines sacred artifacts into a mixed-use roadside development. The development addresses issues of signage, speed, and scale at varying levels. The primary method of combining these diverse artifacts is collage, which we have adapted Tamar Shafrir’s definition:  

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“The introduction of discrete and unusual elements into a dimensional space, in which there tends to be a distinction between figure and ground, between content and context.”1 

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The Pompous Cheeky Creepy Spring Rider Supercenter embraces paradox and contradiction by housing a spring rider showroom, columbarium, crematorium, motel, funeral home, chapel, bar, and photobooth amusement park under one roof. A giant billboard in a sea monster-like form addresses the speed and the scale of the interstate, the plinth and adaptive reuse of an existing building addresses the speed and scale of the shopping center, and the picket fence and residential detailing addresses the speed and scale of the individual.  

 

The Pompous Cheeky Creepy Spring Rider Supercenter is a playful bricolage that strays from singular architectural trajectories and traditional restrictive binaries (i.e. beautiful and ugly or modern and post-modern), by bringing forward an entirely new set of ideals that are complex, nuanced, and interesting. Special attention has been given to minor aesthetic categories, the canon of roadside architecture, material selections, inauthenticity, and programming. 

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1 Shafrir, Tamar. “Surgeon, Seamster, Sorcerer.” ​Lowdown Magazine​ , 2018.