February 11, 2019

Prismatic Installation in Washington, DC by Hou de Sousa Glows in the Dark

Hou de Sousa‘s Prismatic lit up the night in Washington during Georgetown Glow,” an exhibition of outdoor light installations. Led by Nancy Hou and Josh de Sousa, a total of eight designers, engineers, and volunteers assembled Prismatic.

The installation was comprised of 10 cord colors, 55,000 linear feet of cord, and 333 frame facets, and was assembled over four weeks.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

To create the site-specific installation for “Georgetown Glow,” Hou de Sousa visualized a cubic volume containing a prism, then frag­mented the shape into nine segments using Rhinoceros software.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

The framework con­sisted of 790 pieces of steel rebar.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

The welding process alone took two weeks.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

Nylon parachute cord was strung be­tween the rebar lattices.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

Cords were up to 300 feet long.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

The installation was assembled at a metal shop in Brooklyn, New York, loaded onto a flatbed truck, and transported to the site.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

Once at the site, the Senator Charles H. Percy Plaza, Prismatic was fitted with weatherproof ultraviolet LEDs, which were lit every night from November 28 to January 6.

Photography courtesy of Hou de Sousa.

> See more from the January 2019 issue of Interior Design

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