In 1972 SITE was commissioned by BEST Products Company to design a series of nine shopping center buildings. Since ‘big box` retail structures are ubiquitous in the public domain, people`s reflex acceptance of their archetypal presence has been used to invert and change its meaning. Instead treating the BEST stores as conventionally ‘designed` architecture, their rectangular profiles are used as a ‘subject matter for art` and a source of visual commentary on the American commercial strip. The Forest Building is split into two parts. From the street it has a normal storefront which opens onto a forest that you walk through before entering the store itself. It is the last remaining one and now houses a church.
