Famously beautiful ginkgo trees provide the raw materials for this falling leaf artist, which are carefully raked to create site-specific, all-natural art on the campus of Sacramento State University.

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A post shared by Joanna Hedrick (@joanna_hedrick)

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A post shared by Joanna Hedrick (@joanna_hedrick)

Joanna Hedrick works at the school and has made these creations a kind of annual tradition,providing a backdrop for photos and a unique series of installation artworks for students — a great distraction right around finals time.

Using rakes, the artist creates complex maze, honeycomb, sunshine and other shapes, generally around a half-dozen per year. The idea is simple: take something already in place, then rearrange it to make something fun, interesting and a little different. Naturally, these works are eventually blown back into more abstract configurations, but that unraveling can be fascinating to watch, too.

Central yet unused, the central median of New York City’s Park Avenue is the subject of a series of spectacular and speculative redesigns — from rock-climbing walls and waterfalls to kayak commuter lanes — thanks to a creative ideas competition.

Participating architects, designers and planners were given free reign to re-imagine this major thoroughfare spanning across Manhattan, and took that liberty to heart. Their pitches for Beyond the Centerline, organized by an NYC real estate company, are largely quite extreme.

Among other ideas, short-listed contestants offered up images of ice-skating rinks, elevated basketball courts, yoga studies and Modernist art exhibition spaces. Some are fun and others functional, offering alternative ways to commute by boat, for instance.

Some are focused on greening the dense city, creating space for landscapes and natural environments to break up the loud and busy car-filled route. A few even suggest incorporating forest habitats for urban wildlife. Many of the proposals are vertical in nature, seeking to maximize the small footprint offered by introducing shops, cafes, markets, theaters and other above-ground and underground amenities.

“While Park Avenue, with its median plantings and periodic art installations, remains one of the world’s most iconic commercial boulevards, I have long believed that we can and must be far more imaginative in how we encounter and utilize such a precious urban commodity,” said the contest creators. “Our hope is that this contest and these proposals will spark a real conversation about what can be done to activate Park Avenue’s center line for a new generation of New Yorkers.” Winners will receive up to $25,000 for their creative work, and while it may never be built, hopefully it can at least get people thinking about how to develop underutilized space in cities.

Circling drones cast soft light on landscapes below (and create UFO-style patterns in the skies over) gorgeous natural settings in this series of surreal nature images by photographer Reuben Wu.

Dubbed LUX NOCTIS II, this series follows up on a previous set of ground-illuminated works created in a similar vein. But in this case, the use of drone technology adds a fresh dimension to the sequel imagery, both in terms of the quality and source of light as well as the figures created by the aerial micro-vehicles giving it off.

The photographer has traveled around the world to capture sandstone mountains, bubbling volcanoes, gorgeous lakes and rivers, often employing (natural or artificial) light to set the scene.

“Each image is a carefully planned scene consisting of multiple lighting positions,” he explains, “layered to produce a theatrically lit composition. Using the GPS-enabled aerial light/drone in specific positions in space, I am able to create moods of drama and tension through chiaroscuro, and the ability to illuminate isolated features of a scene and exclude unwanted elements.”

“It’s so easy to become numb to conventional depictions of beautiful nature. In casting a new, unfamiliar light, I want people to see that while other planets are fascinating and incredible to us through the eyes of spacecraft and rovers, it is our own planet which has so much grandeur and beauty which is both accessible to us and worthy of preservation and protection.”

Light other time-lapse light art, his works trace patterns that are only fully visible once a photograph is taken, which in turn highlights the exposure time in play within each piece (sometimes also visible through star patterns in the backgrounds).

More about his project and its creator: “Reuben Wu is an artist with a profound interest in the ways that advancing technology can foster new forms of creative expression. Using a Fiilex AL250 in tandem with the 3DR Solo drone and Phase One XF camera system, Reuben has developed a method for selectively ‘painting’ nocturnal landscapes with light via multiple exposures.”

Cozy on the inside and virtually invisible on the outside, this Modernist home has a reflective facade allowing it to blend in with the natural environment. Meanwhile, residents can enjoy views out thanks to the one-way mirrored panels.

Designed by Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao (images by Rory Gardiner), the vacation complex in Monterrey has been dubbed Los Terrenos (Spanish for “The Terrains”). Each of three structures in the set are based primarily on one material: glass, earth or wood.

The earthen home has solid walls for privacy, ideally suited for bedrooms. Open-plan living, dining and kitchen spaces are in the more open and naturally lit glass companion building.

The glass curtain wall of the mirrored structure is hung to minimize interruption on the exterior, creating a nearly seamless reflective effect.

The other soil-based structure is composed of clay brick and rammed earth, creating a grounded contrast with its disappearing partner. The third structure has yet to be built, but will be elevated and wooden, again tying it to the forested surroundings.

Green space, installation art and public amenity are all distorted into something fresh and provocative with this strange creation, crashing together at the intersection of amusement and apocalypse.

Developed as part of the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in London by The Edible Bus Stop, a landscape firm that clearly has a sense of humor, the resulting scene is bit hard to parse at a glance.

A totaled car (presumably misled by the lines), smashed phone booth and colorful graffiti help set the stage, but it’s the yellow lines that rise up from the ground and take physical form that really lend the whole work an edge of comic surrealism. A smattering of green growing up through the pavement helps, too.

The temporary exhibition was titled Riot of Color conceived of as “a post apocalyptic interpretation of the after effects of the 2011 London riots.” The dark inspiration is evident, but perhaps overshadowed a bit by absurdity. (via Colossal)