Arnold,
I could see a wall of building facades over the front of the pipes that you can remove a street in the foreground and then a park to mimic the feel of central park. You do scenes with people so well, it would make that corner pretty interesting.
For me, I literally go back to the drawing board frequently. My challenge is though until I get into my next home, it will stay just that. On the drawing board.
Sometimes the drawing board is digital as in the case of this drawing for 3rd Rail FL9s from 2012
Sometimes it is the doodle while doing something else. In this case it was designing a modular layout while in child birth classes prior to my youngest being born. She'll be 12 in a month. You can see that I was paying attention with the notes in the upper right corner. 
Finally, at other times, it's more planned out like this 16'x8' layout I took some time planning when I was in the N scale world. This one may still be on the table so to speak.
What I have found overall is that it is the challenges, such as the pipes in your case, that provide us the opportunity to be at our most creative. Who knows? Those pipes could also be the beginnings of a steel mill or some industrial plant and be integral to the design of your layout. Whatever you figure out, I know your creativity knows no bounds.
