Open For Business

Tomorrow is the first day that the new Houston Permitting Center will be open for business. How will it be? I just know that I'll go to the building and watch whatever happens. I won't be able not to go and watch.

On Friday and Saturday, I couldn't tear myself away from following the move-in, talking to the folks I recognized from the building on Main St. and simply soaking in the whole process of moving 700 employees from a half dozen locations.

And then, of course, at the same time, four art installations were also underway. As was the planting of the green roof, the final paint touch-ups, all that IT business and the dozens of other issues and punch-lists about which I knew nothing. Like what was that electrician fixing down under the floor on level one?

Charles Masterson is five days into the installation of Dick Wray's tower. It's been a sight to see as one panel after another goes on to the corrugated metal wall of the exterior elevator shaft. On Wednesday evening, Beth Wray, Bill Neuhaus and I stayed on through that golden sunset time, watching those first two panels go up. Here are some of Beth's photos from that first evening.

Here's Charlie Genella passing out hard hats to Charles' crew. And Wednesday was the first day I saw both JB and Charlie WITHOUT hard hats.

It's now days later and more and more panels have been added. Progress is 'slow and steady.' Yesterday I began to see the figures and faces in the north panel. Stunning.

Inside the building, Metalab was at work Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Here's Joe Mepplelink alongside Manhattan's electrician working on the last of the CO2 monitors.

Their piece is really looking good. The series of eight CO2 monitors were installed on eight concrete columns in the lobby and connect to the big screen just inside the main doors.

Breathe near any of the eight monitors as you move down through the lobby and the air your exhale will be recorded on that screen. We're hoping folks have fun with this piece. Once they figure it out.

Here's Travis from Metlab working on cabling for the piece at the base of one of the lobby's concrete columns. Travis wrote all the HTML code that makes the patterns on the big screen from the very air we exhale. BTY, see Agnes Welsh Eyster's etched metal panels on the meet and greet reception area immediately behind the column.

Apparently, a lot going on with this cabling that I don't know about.

Robynn Sanders spent Saturday in the building finishing up tiny text interventions. The small yellow painted Post-It notes she painted on level 2 were the 'tiniest' of all. Hope folks like them. They look so real you want to tear them off.

Serena Lin Bush returned for one last adjustment or two on her monitors. They are all uncovered now, even though work on the central staircase is endless and there is always the possibility of a stray nail falling onto a monitor, leaving a dent, a ding. Or throwing them off altogether. We're hoping for the best as they beautiful and such a surprise to see.

Bill Neuhaus, Susan McMillian and I took a look a Serena's monitors the day before she came to make her final check. We talked about the possibility of putting crushed windshield glass under the wooden beams. The idea seems to work and would give ever more light reflections. I need the name of Manhattan's glass vendor, so I can ask about getting recycled broken glass. Another day, another idea.

Kaneem Smith spent a second full day in the lobby. She had help from her mom Thelma and Beth Collins Wray - all three were steaming the burlap columns and putting wire rings in the bottom seams, so each hangs like a full circle and folks can look up inside them where Kaneem has now added some wind chimes. The chimes really add magic to the work.

Lots of steaming going on here. Thank you, Beth.

So, the building opens tomorrow. It's clear that hundreds of folks have worked really hard to make this building truly wonderful. I see a lot of people giving a lot of time and energy to making the facility a really good place in which to work and do business. Every day, I witness the care that is taken to make this building green, sustainable and quite beautiful.

BTW, Jesse Sifuentes' coffee mural was unwrapped on Saturday morning. It looks really good in its space just off the main lobby.

I'll say it again. I just know I'm going to walk up the steps into the lobby tomorrow just to take a look around. I can't help myself. And I'll be wearing open toed shoes too. Nothing else will do after months of clogs.

I don't think that there is any other public building in this city that has quite the variety of civic art we've installed, within budget and with a couple of exceptions, exactly on schedule.

To the public and to the employees who will work here, I say, "Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy." We had a very good time making art that is meant to be taken with a lightness of heart. Have good days.

Count Down: Three More Days

A multitude of things went on in the building today. Agnes Welsh Eyster's etched metal panels on the 'meet and greet' reception center were uncovered. Makes for an impressive welcoming area. Folks were focused on final punch lists. There was lots of vacuuming and dusting, hundreds more yellow boxes moved in and mountains of folded up corrugated boxes left the site.

City folks with badges kept arriving to check on their new space, many of them marveling at everything they saw. They were a real treat to watch.

Here are the decision makers, managing the punch lists, the furniture move-in and all the tasks that must be completed before Manhattan turns the facility over the the city.

By the way, this was the first day that some of us didn't wear hard hats every single moment. I can hardly wait to get out of my closed toed winter shoes and wear summer sandals in this building. I'll do that on Monday.

Channel 45 interviewed Mark McAvoy, the building's administrator, and I heard him giving 'green' facts and figures - surely THE STORY of this facility.

Kaneem Smith was installing more of her burlap coffee bag columns this morning and 45 interviewed her too. I also did a sound bite saying that the civic art in this building mirrored the city's green goals and Houston's energy and diversity.

A&E Graphics came to install two of my text walls. We began on Level 3, but soon found that the wallpaper was too short for the wall space. A miscommunication of measurements, so we moved to the cashier's wall in the lobby.

That installation worked really well and the wall is terrific looking. Months ago I went to the Houston Public Library to look at old blueprints and maps. Selected almost two dozen and asked S.O. Creatives to design a layered wall montage.

Images include a blueprint of the Astrodome that shows home base, a Houston survey map from 1886, a portion of a page from Hines Interests' Galleria drawings, a blueprint of the original Houston airport (that would be before Hobby Airport), a snippet of a drawing from St. Paul's Methodist Church, this one I selected because the building committee included Mr. Jones and Mr. Fondren.

When the cashier's wall installation was complete, I moved one of three printers back against the wall where it belongs. Thought if I positioned it, it would stay put. I wanted to make sure that 'Hines Interests' showed at the bottom of the montage. After all, it was Jerry Hines who brought my former husband and me to Houston way back in 1967, just about they broke ground for One Shell Plaza. That was when you could still see the Esperson Building as a part of the downtown skyline. But I digress.

Left the building after 3:00 to run over to A&E to talk about resizing the wallpaper for level 3. On the way home, I stopped at Goode Company Taqueria for two catfish dinners to go. Place was empty at 5:00.

OK, this post is done. Done for the day. Next? A couple of episodes of The Closer. And then back to the building tomorrow morning. It isn't done until it's done.

Off To The Site

So this morning was quiet and busy. I paid bills, washed my flat hard hat hair, watered pot plants outdoors and now am almost ready to get back to the site to check in on Serena, contact Robynn and see how Metalab is progressing. And I'll count the panels that Charles and his crew have installed since their intended arrival at the site at 5:00 a.m. Expect more photos.

Don't You Just Love This?

All that summer Texas sky at the very bottom of the central staircase? Bravo, Serena Lin Bush.

All In A Day and a Half's Work

Here are a some of the highlights from the last 36 hours. More photos to come tomorrow. I've downloaded dozens of photos of installations underway at the site. Plus photos of stuff I watch happening like tree planting and landscaping and all those yellow box move-ins.

The last 36 hours have been eventful. Worked with Robynn Sanders late last night on my own text interventions throughout the building. Robynn worked way later than I did. Fun to see what she'd painted when I arrived this morning. Robynn and I had a breakthrough idea about an hour into our collaboration. It came when we decided to paint all the text in shades of gray. No red, no blue, just gray. It really works.

Metalab Studio has been installing over several days. I have much more to show and tell about what they are doing.

In a day or two, they'll put CO2 and motion sensors on each of the columns in the main lobby and then folks coming and going in the space will find their movements transferred to the big screen just inside the main door. In graphic form.

Kaneem Smith partially installed today with the help from Daniel Adame. They are hanging, or actually Daniel was hanging and Kaneem and I were saying a lot of, "Move it just a bit to the left" and "Drop it down about four inches" and "No, it looks much better up about a foot."

A crew from A&E Graphics came to install two of my big text walls early this morning, but within minutes judged the semi-gloss paint still tacky and so, set a new install date for Friday, giving the paint three days to dry. Charles Masterson arrived with his crew early afternoon and around 5:00 the first two panels were set in place. So lots to write about. Here are a very few photos. Can you see Beth Wray in this photo of the very first panel about to be set in place? Look again. She's there.

What a day!

More Photos: Dick Wray Panels

Couldn't resist showing more photos from Charles Masterson's shop of the laser cut aluminum panels for Dick Wray's tower at the Houston Permitting Center. They are beautiful now. Just wait until they've been powder coated black and then installed against a corrugated aluminum siding already on the elevator tower. His work will be spectacular.
The men working on these panels were very suitably proud of what they are doing to make this project happen. And what a mix of work in this shop. Check out the elaborate stair railing to the right in the photo above. Takes all kinds.

Random Photos and Commentary

Last week, I caught a glimpse of Agnes Welsh Eyster's etched metal panel for the lobby reception center. It's been covered with corrugated boards for weeks and was recovered the same day I got to take a look at it. Were they installing counter tops? In any case, her work is a lovely introduction to the processes that on in the facility. That 'meet and greet' desk, as it's called, will be a hub of activity.Here's an image of J B White and Carlos Macias in the lobby, both on their cell phones, keeping up with their schedules. Taken ten days out from move-in.

Some days I obviously get very tired. This was one of those days. Think it was the afternoon when Serena and her crew were installing, the day that three sign language walls were installed, the day that I met Robynn Saunders after 5:00 to talk about tiny hand painted text interventions. On another afternoon, I took an almost-nap on a bench in the lobby. No photo of that.
Here's a photo of the central staircase panels. Can you imagine? They arrived just a week ago and they were all installed within three days.
Love this railing detail in the main lobby. Love the broom too.
Here's a cut out in the exterior elevator shaft where Dick Wray's piece will soon be installed. We had to have three squares cut from his artwork too, in order to accommodate water sources for the possibility of fire. There always seem to be used cups or aluminum cans in places like this. I haven't seen one designated trash container on the premises yet.
I seem to lug way too much heavy stuff to the building each day. Two cameras, up-to-the moment files on all the installations, an apple, my cell phone. This photo was taken up on level 4, when Jesse Sifuentes was installing one of his murals.

Remember back when? As far back as 15 months ago when level 3 or 4 looked like this? The space itself has a certain beauty, don't you think?