Blog Posts By Author: Natalie Ross

Strip Appeal is an ideas design competition and traveling exhibit, intended to stimulate and showcase creative design proposals for the adaptive reuse of small-scale strip-malls. They asked designers to answer the question, "how might the small-scale strip be reinvented and redeveloped to local advantage?"

My submission focused on re-designing an existing strip mall in Minneapolis, introducing fresh food, public art and community green space to a neighborhood in need of these shared assets.

To view my official submission, click here.

We had an amazing turnout for parking day. Though the morning started out a bit chilly, the sun eventually arrived along with hundreds of Seattle pedestrians willing to give our Plinko game a try!  WATG's parking-day "park" was bustling for the entire six hours of operation, reaching its peak at lunchtime when most of the WATG Seattle staff came out to lend a hand. By 2:30 pm we had given away more than 300 wildflower seed bombs and 50 tulip bulbs for residents and visitors to plant this fall.

While many people only had a minute to spare on their way to work, some passers-by stopped for longer to hang out and chat, and several people contributed to our green promise tree, committing to personal conservation efforts like walking and recycling.

The best part of parking day was watching the expressions of people who were initially skeptical about our no-strings-attached fun and free prizes. But when most people left the park they were ecstatic about having avoided signing their name to a cause while still leaving with a free seed to plant. The idea of reclaiming a parking space for public use was also entertaining and positive for people, and we definitely converted some skeptics, who may make a park themselves next September in the streets of Seattle.