Institutional Landscaping of the Damned (An Ongoing Series)

This just leaves me asking why.  Why not just put in a decorative rock or something?  What is the point of a brutally pruned shrub entombed in a desert of rock mulch and accompanied by an air conditioning unit? In fact, accompanied is exactly the right word; they haven't tried to obscure the unit with a riot of bushes, they've placed them in perfect balance.  Neither element of the design is more or less important.

It's alive and green, but really looks dead and lifeless.  Ironically, the completely untended weeds along the bike path a mere 20 feet away look much better (if you can block out the chain link fence).

I get that people want low-maintenance landscaping, but I think some well-adapted native plants would actually require less work--they must be spraying weedkiller regularly to keep this space free of interlopers that might detract from their bush/air conditioner composition.