Best Use Yet of an Ugly Parking Garage

Parking garages are necessary.  They are also invariably ugly things.  Bury them, hide them behind bushes, clad them in posters and neon, there's still no mistaking the ugliness that is the modern American parking garage.

But in Los Angeles I stumbled across something unexpected.  Sure, it's still ugly, but it is at least unusual.

At the city's John Ferraro Office Building, the roof of the adjacent parking garage is covered in water.  It's a great big fountain!  Does it have any environmental benefit?  Does it mitigate the heat island effect?  What about algae?  I don't know the answers to any of those things.  And as you can tell, there's still a butt-ugly parking garage underneath it.  But the water idea is at least a new one, and the designers should be applauded for original thinking.

• More about the John Ferraro Office Building here.
• More architecture of Los Angeles and the rest of the Southland here.