New York, New York, USA

Urban textures: Summit One Vanderbilt is the city's newest (and second highest) observation deck. Here is where you can be one with the skyline, and feel superior to everything you see through those glass panes. Transparent, translucent, and reflective surfaces combine with shiny balloons masquerading as cloud droplets to disorient and dazzle. [2021]

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Urban textures: Here's the feel of vertigo and unorthodoxy, the feel of the city known to "the creative class." Everything is relative and can be seen from multiple perspectives. As cities started to exist outside the box, right angles were replaced by obliques and curves, and windows by reflective surfaces. [2021]

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Urban textures: Here's the feel of order and organization, the feel of the city known to "the organization man." Everything in a box of its own. For the suits of the 1950s, every aspect of work and personal life was compartmentalized. Then, our cities got the message: Think outside the box. [2008]

St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

The street signs on Snell Isle are far from standard issue. They look like they could be drawn from a museum (a) of natural history (see the panther?) or (b) of art (see the Roman frieze?). As for the panther: The neighborhood is his former habitat. And, as for the demigod trying to be helpful: Could be either Bes or Bacchus. [2009]

Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA

Abnormal is how you might describe this street sign. It's hardly standard issue. Its placement at ground level comes as a surprise, and its form is reminiscent of a frieze, even down to the mosaic tiles. Perhaps for this neighborhood, normal street signs would be just too pedestrian (that means "commonplace," according to Merriam-Webster). [2008]

Ottawa, Kansas, USA

In contrast to standard-issue street signs, the wayfinding aids in Ottawa deviate from the norm. They are not even near eye level: They are on the ground. And they deviate from the form we expect, too. They take the shape of three-dimensional polyhedrons rather than two-dimensional planes. In placement, though, no surprises: They are on the corners. [2021]

Newport, Rhode Island, USA

What does a standard-issue street sign look like? Take a gander at Thames Street. Nothing more, nothing less than what we need for wayfinding. And, while not particularly aesthetic, it does no harm to the streetscape. Even its location in our visual field, at slightly above arms reach, is where we expect to get the information we need. [2008]