This imposing concrete, steel and glass structure is way more architecturally interesting than it should be for a federal facility -- from the outside anyway, with soaring metal grilles, hanging greenery, and a LEED certification --- but step on through the double doors and you get a harsh reminder of what Government Interior Design circa 2013 looks like. It's all good though, once you get past the four armed dudes with bulletproof vests (they're friendly enough) and you're in a bland universe of cream, mocha and hospital white walls with eerie levels of library-like quiet. Up on the 11th floor of this high-anxiety maze is the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, both (I guess) crammed into a tiny room marked Public Entrance. OK so things got immediately cheerier once I got buzzed into this room, thanks to the super-bubbly clerk who hooked me up with the National Parks pass I needed (luckily not defaced with a sneering image of Dementia Don) and loaded me up with all kinds of other valuable info. Of course she double-billed me for the trouble, which Im still working out with my credit card company, but other than that I gotta say it was one of the more pleasant interactions I've had with a gubmint employee. (FYI the building is technically called the Edith Green - Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, and fully remodeled in 2013). read more