Painted patterns turn ordinary sidewalks and other urban surfaces into geometric artworks, creating a level of creative interaction as well as domestic intimacy in public spaces.

European artist Ali (Arthur-Louis Ignoré) takes cues from ancient decorative rug design traditions as well natural and geometric forms from other ornamental sources.

Using simple white-on-gray, the drawings themselves can be simple at times, or playful. Their contrast with monotonous paving stones and asphalt brings dull areas to life with a bit of unconventional decor.

Some span entire alleys, streets or even rooftops, reaching up to 10,000 square feet in size, and spanning cities in France, Finland, Canada and the United States.

But while these larger works are impressive, there is something simple and subversive about sketching out, using simple lines and patterns, a little cozy place-making rug on a street for all to share.

If you have ever opened a side door to see the lines of a parking space, or asked a passenger to get out and guide you in, you may be wondering where this simple solution has been for all your years of urban driving.

In some cases, like parallel street parking, it would be hard to implement. But in open lots or interior garages — anywhere with a wall, fence, guardrail or space for posts — it is just too obvious and easy not to do, yet too few places realize the opportunity.

In areas where it snows, these lines do a lot more than just help guide people into their final parking position — buried under fresh powder, they can represent the only way to keep a lot from devolving into a state of anarchy.

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)

A pane of glass overlaid with a simple line drawing brings crumbling ruins to life at one of Austria’s most famous historical sites, reanimating the partial building near the Open Air Museum Petronell. When a viewer lines up the illustration with the structure, known as Heidentor (Heathen’s Gate), the image completes itself in a compelling yet entirely low-tech fashion.

Located just east of Vienna, Carnuntum dates back to the the 1st Century A.D., when Roman soldiers expanded on an existing town 50,000 people to create a military encampment. Between 354 AD and 361 AD a huge triumphal monument was erected next to the camp and city. Contemporary reports suggest that Emperor Constantius II had it built to commemorate his victories.

“When the remains of Carnuntum disappeared after the Migration Period the monument remained as an isolated building in a natural landscape and led Medieval people to believe it was the tomb of a pagan giant. Hence, they called it Heidentor.”

Preserving ancient historical sites is often a balance between stabilization and restoration; fully restoring can enhance the exterior appearance, but is costly and arguably diminishes the authenticity of a ruin. This approach strikes a balance, much like augmented overlays in digital history apps.

This ongoing series of sculptural floating cities and suspended towns could be mistaken for pencil drawings when glanced on a wall or seen in a two-dimensional medium like photography.

Spanish artist David Moreno sees it that was as well: at attempt to draw sculptures, but using steel rods lashed together with piano wire rather than a pen on a pad. Background depth, shadows and other slight dimensional clues cue viewers into what they are really seeing.

These stick-figure structures correspondingly look deceptively simple: what would normally be a single stroke is instead a meticulous assembly process, the rods tied together by hand and piano wire wrapped and clipped to support them.

The Barcelona-based artist has also toyed with 3D-printing extrusion devices to shape similar works in more colorful formats, combining, for instance, a series of stylized chairs into a mass of interconnected hanging sculptures.

In other cases, strings and wires are looped and stretched to form complex shapes or interact with other objects – stories and figures emerging from a combination of materials and forms.

While the specifics of his work shifts from one installation to the next, a common theme is clear: taking traditions of line art into the third dimension and seeing what can come of the process (via Colossal).