Metro Headquarters, Washington, DC

The artist team Hou de Sousa (Nancy Hou and Josh de Sousa) was selected to create three site-specific artworks for the new WMATA D.C. headquarters. Aura is a suspended artwork located in the lobby of the building. The sculpture Hooray and the sculptural bench Pebble are respectively located on 7th Street SW and on D Street SW. The artists stated that "When designing this triptych of public sculptures, it was easy to find inspiration within the immediate site as well as the broader context of Washington, D.C. Pierre L'Enfant's visionary urban plan for the District echoes throughout each sculpture proposal, as do the architectural features of Harry Weese's iconic D.C. metro stations, and Studios Architecture's fantastic WMATA HQ campus design. From the onset we appreciated how the design of the new HQ building and surrounding landscape reverberate with the geometric qualities of nearby L'Enfant Plaza Station and we've worked to maintain a dialogue with each of these critical precedents by deploying a vocabulary of intersecting diagonal lines, rounded corners, and coffered spaces."