Design and consultancy · Dubai, UAE · 2021
District 2020, Dubai
An immersive projection dome for Expo 2020’s legacy district, designed and built with Soluis in Glasgow, shipped to Dubai and standing for the Cityscape Global event on a date that could not move.
The question
How do you let people walk through a district that has not been built yet?
Client and partner
Soluis Group, for District 2020 (the Expo 2020 Dubai legacy project)
Scope
AV design, dome components, build, logistics, international shipping, on-site set-up
Constraint
Cityscape Global, Dubai: a fixed opening date, months from the brief
The question
District 2020 is what the Expo 2020 Dubai site becomes after the exhibition: a mixed-use innovation district for companies and residents. Its owners needed to sell that future to prospective tenants at Cityscape Global, the region’s largest property event, while the district itself was still drawings and a construction site. Soluis, the Glasgow visualisation studio, would create the content. They asked us how to put people inside it.
The brief
An immersive, informative experience that communicated the district in a few minutes to a walk-up audience; robust enough to run all day for the length of the event; buildable in Scotland, shippable to Dubai, and set up on the show floor to a date that could not move. Nothing could be tested for the first time on site.
What we recommended, and what we built
The recommendation
A projection dome rather than screens or headsets. A dome lets a group share the experience standing up, needs no explanation, and puts Soluis’s content around the viewer instead of in front of them. It is also the format that survives an exhibition schedule: no per-person hardware to hand out, clean and reset.
The dome
We designed the AV and the dome components as one assembly: the frame, the projection surface, the projector positions and the audio, sized to the stand and to the flight cases it had to travel in. It was built and proven in Glasgow first, then taken down and packed.
Logistics
International shipping, customs and event-site scheduling were part of the job, not somebody else’s. We liaised with the Expo and Cityscape personnel on access, power and build slots so the set-up on the floor was a repeat of the one we had already done at home.
On site
Our team travelled with the kit, built the dome on the stand, calibrated the projection and audio to the finished space and handed it to Soluis running. It ran for the whole event.
Building the dome
What we handed over
A working dome on the show floor on the morning it was needed, calibrated to the stand, with Soluis’s content running and our team on hand for the event. Design, build, shipping and set-up came from one company, which is the only way a date like that is met.
What we would say to anyone planning the same: the deadline is the design constraint. Choose the format that can be built and proven at home, then rebuilt on site in hours, and put the logistics on the same critical path as the creative work.
Our responsibilities
- Design AV system and dome components, sized to the stand and the flight cases
- Build Dome frame, projection surface, projection and audio, assembled and proven in Glasgow
- Logistics Packing, international shipping and customs to Dubai
- Event liaison Access, power and build slots agreed with Expo 2020 and Cityscape personnel
- On site Build, calibration and support for the duration of Cityscape Global
- Content Soluis Group, Glasgow
Related projects
Castle Fine Art, Birmingham
Interactive gallery for the Billy Connolly collection
Studio King Street, Stirling
Technology design and installation for a boutique aparthotel
Hendrick’s Gin Palace, Girvan
Building-wide audio, 4K video and secure network for William Grant & Sons
Have a question like this?
Some briefs need an answer before they need an installer. If you are weighing formats, feasibility or a deadline that cannot move, tell us about the event or the building and we will tell you what we would do, including when the answer is not to proceed.