Printmaker Paul O’Connor has installed a series of colorful cut-paper collages at Trinity Rep.

So far, April is shaping up as a good month for art lovers with, A) a sense of wanderlust and, B) a trusty pair of walking shoes.

In fact, a willingness to walk as well as look is a key factor in several new exhibits, all of which take advantage of offbeat locations to explore the interplay between art, architecture and urban context.

Perhaps the most offbeat of the bunch is “de/construct II,” an artist-organized exhibit opening Friday night in the Jewelry District. Installed in a 4,000-square-foot loft with sweeping views of Providence Harbor, the show features site-specific works by 20 artists, all of whom were asked to respond either to the loft itself or the views outside.

Not surprisingly, the loft’s stunning views were too tempting for some artists to resist. An installation by Natasha Brooks-Sperduti, for example, features a do-it-yourself landscape, complete with hand-painted hills and a 3-D “tree” made with pieces of PVC pipe and real tree branches. Tucked into a corner — and positioned just beneath a pair of large south-facing windows — this faux landscape merges seamlessly with the real one outside.

Other artists take a more minimalist approach. Visit the show at night — or simply blink at the wrong time — and you might miss the plain blue-green stripe that Lynne Harlow has painted around one of the loft’s largest rooms. Yet during day, this seemingly simple work comes alive, playing off the ever-changing light levels inside the apartment while paying its respects to the nearby blue-green waters of Narragansett Bay.

While the loft’s outdoor views seem to have inspired Harlow and Brooks-Sperduti, other artists offer more generalized urban scenes. The Time is Now, a hallway mural by the talented Providence artist Andrew Sloan, features a jazzy streetscape populated by playful pop-art buildings and people.(Look closely, and you’ll notice that Sloan has also incorporated several real-life objects, including a plastic light switch and a fire extinguisher.)

A pair of mixed media drawings by Peter Owen, meanwhile, take familiar urban features such as buildings, water towers and fire escapes and turn them into a kind of freeform visual language. It’s as if Owen set out to combine the precision of architectural drawings with the eye-teasing look of cubist collage — Picasso meets Piranesi.

Some artists took the show’s construction/deconstruction theme more literally than others.

One contributor, Lisa Perez, knocked out parts of a wall, revealing the tangle of utility connections — electrical wires, heating pipes, plumbing conduits — hidden underneath. As a final touch, Perez added a series of fungus-like wall sculptures that appear to be feeding off the general decay. The result suggests a cross between an ancient ruin and a Home Depot display.

Other artists leave their mark on ceilings (Will Reeves, who serves up a zigzag-shaped hanging sculpture), floors (Agata Michalowska, who dribbled gold paint on the floor in honor of the loft’s Jewelry District location) and sinks (Alyn Carlson, who turned a metal utility sink into a kind of private grotto, complete with its own watery soundtrack).

Likewise, photographer Paul Clancy turned an empty clothes closet into an impromptu darkroom filled with what appear to be vintage photographs of downtown Providence. (Actually, the photographs depict the former Providence police and fire headquarters on La Salle Square, which was torn down in 2004 to make way for a still-unbuilt hotel complex.)

By now, you may be wondering what sort of person would let 20 artists run wild in a luxury residential loft. As it turns out, there’s a simple answer: one of the owners, Allison Paschke, is an artist as well as one of the contributors to the exhibit.

In a recent interview, Paschke, who has a ceramics degree from Cranbrook Academy, explained that she and her husband purchased the loft two years ago, shortly after moving to Providence from California. Before moving in, however, the couple decided to renovate — a decision that, unknown to them, involved running a gauntlet of state and city agencies.

Two years later, Paschke expects the renovations to finally begin this spring. In the meantime, she’s used the loft to host two “de/construct” exhibits. (You’ll find pictures and information about both shows at deconstruct2.blogspot.com and 150chestnut.blogspot.com.)

“Here we had this beautiful space that was literally going to waste,” Paschke says. “And since we’re going to gut most of the space anyway, why not invite a bunch of artists in and have some fun?”

“de/construct II opens Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. on the 7th floor of 150 Chestnut St. Exhibit hours are daily (except Mondays) from noon to 5 p.m., through Sunday, April 12. For more information, call (401) 440-8250.

From the Jewelry District, it’s on to Downcity, where the Providence Art Windows project has installed a new round of artist-made window displays. As usual, most are on or near Westminster Street, with a few stragglers as far away as Trinity Rep (where printmaker Paul O’Connor has installed a series of colorful cut-paper collages) and the URI-Feinstein campus on Washington Street (where Peter Owen is showing more of his architectural mash-ups).

Other highlights include Marshmallow Life (corner of Eddy and Westminster streets), a collaboration between painter Jillian Clark and sculptor Eric Rice that uses recycled materials to create a kind of mini-forest in the middle of the city; Won’t You Be My Neighbor (same location), a meditation on urbanism and community by Sarah Sandman; and Mill Culture (191 Westminster St.), a wonderful tribute to the state’s textile industry by Deborah Baronas.

Art fans with a sweet tooth will also want to seek out belle & her lickable library paper (191 Westminster St.), an installation by Marisa DiPaola that uses chocolate and orange cake frosting to create what amounts to edible wallpaper.

Finally, if you’re in Downcity over the next few weeks, be sure to check out Ristie’s, a new shop-cum-art-installation at the corner of Westminster and Union streets, across from Tazza Caffe.

So far, not much is known about the project, except that, A) RISD students are behind it and, B) it will have something to say about our consumer-driven culture.

Perhaps more will be revealed when Ristie’s opens Thursday night at 7.

The current round of Providence Art Windows displays will run through June 12. For information on artists and locations, visit providence- artwindows.blogspot.com.

bvansicl@projo.com