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The Dis-static Domain
by Katie Bailey
The liquidation of Walmart Supercenter #5959 into dynamic
sections provides the surrounding community a place of opportunity and leisure.
This remaining shell of the previous big box store, Walmart,
holds the former commercial floor space now liquidated into zones of potential
productivity and leisure. The only dictating features are the skeletons of the
Walmart shelves, previously meant to form the aisles of endless plastic
products decked out in captivating colors and placed on show to catch the
passerby’s eye. The introduced timber framework combines with the old in order to
mold renewed, dynamic spaces of opportunity, to not only provide a place to support
the local commerce instead of the previous mass consumerism that took place
there, but also provide moments for the users to pause as well. The subdivided
floor space is left to be utilized by members of the community, ready to make
something of their impromptu claimed space. As the concept of the big box store is becoming increasingly archaic across the country, the availability of these spaces for sale and for lease increases as stores close and the demand for walkability and the neighborhood store increases. Local visitors can wander within and around the grid of inlets to explore what the operators have to offer. The maze of the open market spills out onto the previous concrete prairie of a parking lot that has since been overruled by local flora and food vendors. This community based domain allows for specialization on a local, more ecological self-sustaining scale, giving opportunity back to the community by providing the users a place to reign over their own enterprises.