George R. Brown Air Vents – Daily Photo

For today’s photo I chose an image of one set of air vents at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, TX. The building is named after Houston engineer George Rufus Brown, who joined his brother, Herman, in his fledgling engineering company, Brown and Root, in 1922. I worked with successor company, KBR, from 2009 – 2013. In these air vents I find similarities with the services of the Pompidou Center in Paris. And when I lived in Paris, working with Schlumberger in their then facilities in Montrouge, I worked in a building designed by the same architect as the Pompidou Center that also had brightly colored services, like these George R. Brown air vents. I think there’s no middle ground with services like these. Either you hide them completely or you make them a feature.