Shopping centers are among the most prominent physical features of most cities and towns in America. Because of our society's dependence on automobiles, a shopping center must provide adequate parking if it is to prosper. Based on early parking demand studies, a typical shopping center devotes nearly twice as much land to parking than it does to the shopping center itself. This is a problem because asphalt parking lots disrupt the hydrologic cycle, they contribute to heat islands, they do not represent an acceptable aesthetic to most people, and they are not designed to explicitly support multiple uses. | The purpose of this thesis is to explore alternative design solutions for surface parking lots in commercial shopping centers based on sound ecologic and aesthetic design principles. This thesis proposes unique designs for addressing hydrology, heat islands, aesthetics, and multiple uses, and a combined design approach that addresses all four concerns simultaneously.