This thesis searches to understand the impact of the big box through a reading of vacant ones. "No trespassing" and "no parking" signs surrounding parking lots of abandoned stores begin to tell the story of the big box. It has a changing lifecycle and many across the country have shifted out of their original retail cycles into dormant cycles that ban visitors. These closed stores no longer offer their ubiquitous, air-conditioned, windowless interiors and aisles of merchandise for shoppers. Instead, they are void spaces in our landscape. Some stores have been empty for more than ten years, while other stores have closed after being built only five years earlier. This thesis explores the extent of the big box's social, political, economic, and cultural influence, through its lifecycle as a retailer and as a dormant void, in cities and suburbs across our global landscape.