This is the home of Clearscapes, located in the Warehouse District. The web site says that

Clearscapes is a multi-disciplinary design firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina that was formed in 1981 when architect, Steven D. Schuster, and sculptor, Thomas H. Sayre, combined their creative talents and energies to design environments for some of North Carolina’s neediest citizens, the severely and profoundly retarded residents of Murdoch Center in Butner, North Carolina. Twenty four years later, the firm has matured to a broad-based, full service design firm comprised of twenty architects, artists, and support personnel with diverse educational, geographic and experiential backgrounds.

In addition to the design studio, the firm maintains a 4,000 square foot shop where material research, mock-up fabrications, and experimentation is done. The firm’s public art is built in the shop as well as components for many of its architectural projects. This facility is unique and extends the firm’s creativity beyond the confines of a traditional architectural firm.

There are several small sculptures and other art pieces around this building that make it one of the most interesting and attractive commercial spaces in all of Raleigh.

I got this photo while pinned down under the downpour on Friday night. I was stuck under an awning waiting for the heavy rain to subside, and decided to get a photo of the Capitol building. I had thought the Vance Monument was the only human-like object in the photo, but if you look closely at the far left bottom window there is a shadowy figure in the rain. This was a longer exposure (1.5 seconds) so any person captured by the camera should be invisible. Additionally, people are never a solid dark color, especially with so many bright fluorescent lights around. If it was a person standing still, there would at least a few colors. I stood staring at the Capitol building for a long time, and there weren’t any people standing around it or walking by it. I’m certainly not a believer in the paranormal and not saying this is a ghost – but it is something strange.

If you look carefully while walking down Hope Street, you can see a small field of wildflowers, a tree house, and a campfire pit with a circle of tree stumps. I’ve never known anyone that has lived in the adjacent apartment complex, so I don’t know its history or how frequently it is presently used. There was a rotting hammock on the floor of the top level, and a decaying pulley rope as seen in the first photo.