For No Reason at All: The Archstone Garage

The Archstone is a large and unfriendly-looking place. It used to be called the Grosvenor and rumor had it that the average age of their tenants was around 75. But none of this has anything to do with their parking garage at 5th & Vine. It looks like this:

So what, you say? Well, if you get a little closer, the leaves start to pop out, like so:

The thing I like about this is that they could have put up industrial-strength wire mesh or something equally as tough, but they chose leaves - decorative over functional. And it accomplishes the same thing. Plus, it makes that short, empty block seem a little less severe. Here are my two favorite patterns:


Simplicity can be very nice. There's a building along Western Ave. that tries to do the same thing, but with metal people. It's pretty awful.