Session 121 summary
The team shared their range of projects, highlighting key projects they recently completed at Wētā Workshop. One of these was their work on the Dubai World Expo 2020, where they designed the experience for the Mobility Pavilion, “ALIF: Chase Your Future.” A key aspect of their work is the creative output that draws on the cinematographic skills and legacy of Wētā Workshop. They excel at taking the beautiful cinematographic vision and translating it into real-world environments. The Mobility Pavilion project at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai exemplifies this approach. One of the greatest aspects of this project was that the team got to work with a culture they were not familiar with—the Middle East. They learned a lot about how the local culture perceived things. This project explored the ideas of mobility through an Arab lens, presenting a universal story that included key historical and fictional figures, establishing a sculpture of Emirati significance. The team shared a picture of the venue, which was a very large building, making it a significant project for them.
For this project, they also focused on the exterior of the building. They incorporated key iconic elements outside the building to build the overall spirit, ensuring that the experience began even before people entered the building. They placed an Arabian mare and its foal outside the building, representing ideas of antiquity and majesty. These sculptures were key to the storytelling within the pavilion and were specific to the historical and mythological context of the culture. Andrew emphasized the importance of considering how people interact with such sculptures when designing these kinds of projects.
Andrew shares an image of the building plan and discusses a key aspect of the project: establishing the team’s narrative around the theme of mobility. They aimed to interpret these ideas through a storytelling narrative. The team collaborated with various groups worldwide, including their writing teams, to conceptualize numerous key concepts and narrative journeys. One of the notable features of the pavilion is the visitor experience. Audiences enter on the ground floor, where the horse sculptures are located, and proceed through the entrance to a large elevator or platform that takes them to the top floor. From there, visitors wind their way down through the space. In the final section, if they wish to explore further, they can journey from the top back down to the bottom. This design influenced the team’s decision on how to create an experience that embodied the ideas of mobility.
The overall concept focused on creating an immersive storytelling space, blending ideas from film and other mediums. This fusion of elements helped shape the interior spaces and guided the team’s interpretation of the content within.
During the process, they explored many ideas, sharing images that represent only 1% of the drawings and concepts they began to conceptualize. These images were visualizations of various areas of the experience. They realized how similar many of these ideas were. The team faced numerous challenges along the way, which are typical in architecture, such as lighting requirements, engineering, and interpretation. The movement of people through the space was a crucial consideration, both in terms of group and individual flow, and how they would encounter elements of the story along the way. This is why they created many conceptual visualizations and also did a lot of writing for these projects. They found that concepts could be expressed not only visually but also through immersive words. Sometimes, it is easier to write words than to draw pictures, depending on one’s approach to the process.
Since many people were involved in this project, managing the multitude of thoughts and ideas was an art in itself. What is wonderful is that all ideas are valuable, even if someone believes their idea is not as good as another’s. All ideas should be on the table because sometimes small parts of an idea are truly genius and need to be applied, even if not immediately apparent. It is always beneficial to be open-minded and share all ideas.
Going through the images of the pavilion, Andrew explains how, upon entering the pavilion, the audience steps into the architectural hatch of the building. On the ground level, they enter a lift where one of the key characters punctuates the beginning of the story; this character also signifies the ending and the future. The first phase involves a very large lift, one of the largest in the world, capable of taking up to 160 people at once to the top floor. As the audience enters the space, they see a girl on the platform above them, reaching upwards. This single spotlight figure draws everyone’s attention, making them wonder what she is looking at or pointing to.
In the lift, a beautiful audio experience begins, featuring sounds of mobility from the dawn of civilization to the present and future, including space travel. Once the audience reaches the top, there is a stunning light show. Visitors realize that the sculpture of the girl is reaching out to a beautiful blue butterfly, which is seen later as the final moment in the last act of the experience. The concept of a game with storytelling influenced the design of this project significantly, with the storytelling referred to as the first act, second act, and so on, enhancing the visitors’ journey.
Throughout the entire experience, very realistic figures and sculptures are seen, which should not be mistaken for actors, even though the team auditioned actors and performers on whom these sculptures are based. The sculptures are created to appear lifelike and are made on a 1:1 scale. Sharing the image of another character, Andrew explains how this particular sculpture is created on a 1:8 scale, making it almost twice the size of a human. In other areas, they have created even larger sculptures. They tailored their work to match the storytelling vision of the client—the World Expo teams.
For this project, the LBE team decided early on that the story of mobility would focus on people rather than on cosmic cars, super loops, hyper loops, NFD, mobility gadgets, and transportation devices. The focus was much more on the ideas of humanity, allowing visitors to connect with other people when experiencing the pavilion. One character design involved a perspective overlooking ancient Baghdad, with the character observing the expanse of this ancient city. The team received great feedback from many people who appreciated the view through the window of ancient Baghdad.
As the audience leaves the House of Wisdom space, they enter Act 1, which consists of large spaces lining the exterior walls. These spaces capture and visualize the story of mobility from the dawn of civilization to space travel, as seen in some of the images in the background, wrapping around the space. Upon entering, visitors start to ascend along a pathway leading to the next floor. This space is approximately 2.5 meters high and about 57 meters long. As visitors turn the corner, they encounter three key historical figures representing different aspects of mobility. These figures are immense, about eight times the size of normal humans, seated at around 9 meters tall. The table around which they are seated is about 10 meters wide. Projections on the table, accompanied by sound and lighting, tell a creative story for each character, with voice-overs primarily in Arabic and moments of English translation.
Andrew shares a picture of one of these large figures’ faces, which is around 3 meters high, showcasing lifelike details. The team intentionally created bumped-out areas to allow the audience to move closer to these giant figures and appreciate the lifelike features on their faces. This design brings imagination to life, capturing the essence of the person, their complexion, attire, and the cultural nuances of that time and place. This achievement required many hours of research by various teams. Another character they built was a photorealistic image based on a pearl diver. The hand reaching out from the figure is significant, similar to the girl at the beginning who reaches out to the butterfly. This motif of reaching out to new horizons is a key element throughout the pavilion’s storytelling. For the diver, the team aimed to incorporate cinematic and theatrical lighting into the space to help people immerse, connect, and engage—an essential aspect of storytelling.
Andrew shares images of another space they built in the pavilion. Throughout the journey, visitors move from the past to the present and then to the future. The space Andrew discusses represents the present and features a very large projection-mapped sphere. On one side, it appears spherical with the obvious radius of a sphere. This is also a vast space with ramps around it, enabling visitors to walk around as they descend to the next floor.
The sphere displays shifting, changing motion graphics projected across its enormous form. With a starry background, it seems as though the sphere is in a starry space, giving visitors a magical journey upon entering. While the projection plays across the sphere, rippling lines show movements of transportation. The team designed it to be a beautiful graphic and a stunning object in its own right, even when animated. It serves as an information graphic, enhanced by a voice-over storyteller explaining what is happening on the sphere. As the visitors walk around the sphere, it begins to burst outward, revealing the inside of the sphere on the other side of the space. Another presenter appears, telling a story about the future, the digital network, the digital age, and how these have revolutionized communication and transportation as forms of mobility.
As the visitors go further around, they return near the sphere, encountering another creation by the team: a large astronaut over twice the size of a normal human. The team spent a lot of time building the spacesuit, which is a hybrid of a Russian cosmonaut suit and an American suit. However, it features the Emirati flag and acknowledges the Emirates space program, bringing it to life and honouring this aspect.
Then, moving into the third and final act, visitors pass through narrow passageways. These passageways are not too narrow but are smaller spaces that contain additional details about mobility and its story, with the team incorporating an otherworldly feel. As visitors walk down, spiraling through the space, they reach the final area where the girl, who was originally sitting at the beginning of the experience, is now standing. The butterfly is now on her finger, and another character, the girl Shamsa’s future self, is depicted falling and reaching out to the girl, who, in return, reaches out to her future self.
The future Shamsa, similar to the 9-meter giant creations, was made in New Zealand and then shipped to Dubai. The entire sculpture is 12 meters high, with the future form of the girl being composed of butterflies. This gives it a digital and geometric shape, which transitions into a naturalistic form while shaping the body. Andrew then shares images of the sculpture of the girl holding the beautiful blue butterfly. This piece, depicting “the girl reaching out to her future self and the future self is reaching out to the girl”, became an iconic image for the Dubai Expo.
This project indeed had a big budget, and the team utilized a lot of technology and skills to create phenomenal photorealistic, hyperreal figures on a scale the world has never seen before. However, one of the most amazing aspects that moved many visitors was a small model of ancient Baghdad. What was interesting about this model was that it was analogue—not a big, expensive build with digital elements. It was simple and modest, but the magic came from how the team presented it. Looking at it through a window evoked the charm of memories from reading books and seeing illustrations, giving it a lovely quality.
Andrew emphasizes this point because sometimes we don’t need to rely on technology or bright lights; some of the simplest ideas are the best. He believes it’s about the idea and how it is represented rather than spending a lot of money on technology.
LiWen shares a recent project the team completed, of which they are very proud. This project was a journey through the COVID lockdowns, beginning during the first lockdown in New Zealand at the start of 2020. When Andrew and LiWen traveled to China the previous year to oversee the final installation, the city was still experiencing intermittent lockdowns, and workers were busy dusting the shopping mall building shown in the images. From start to finish, this project was a COVID journey.
LiWen encourages designers to consider their own sensibilities and preferences. He urges them to think about how storytelling can be used to bridge the gap between their work and their audience. The project is called “Aura: Forest at the Edge of the Sky.” It is an immersive, interactive sculptural forest within a multi-story atrium, spreading across about 4,000 square meters over four levels. It is located inside China’s largest duty-free shopping mall, which is currently considered the world’s largest duty-free shopping mall. The project opened last October in Haikou, a tropical city on Hainan, one of the most popular holiday destinations for Chinese citizens and other tourists.
This region is saturated with new technology, pop culture, and entertainment. The team was asked to imagine a new destination within the shopping mall that would attract and completely transport shoppers into another world while complementing over 800 luxury international and local brands. To create a fantasy world that no one has ever seen before, they began with an appreciation of the world that already exists.
Hainan is home to some very unique flora and fauna, including golden gibbons and colorful bee-eater birds, as well as parasitic vines and key geographical landmarks across the island. The team sought to magnify and reimagine these environments and creatures in their design. The novelty of the design comes from taking the wonder of the natural world and wrapping it into a unique story.
Storytelling is the most influential design tool for the team. The story of Aura begins with a young boy and girl who travel across Hainan and stumble upon a moon bridge. Out of playfulness and curiosity, the girl drops a pebble into the pool below, which opens a magical portal into a fantasy version of Hainan. This pebble transforms into a glowing orb that takes the boy and girl on a journey to encounter enchanting environments across a fantastical Hainan.
From this point, a singular design motif emerges: the orb and the portal, which become the lifeblood of the project. The boy and girl represent the visitors to the shopping mall, and the portal symbolizes the gateway to igniting their imaginations. This is where the real fun begins, as the team imagines what the creatures and environments in this fantastical world might look like, how they behave, and how they interact with one another. They envision deer with legs as tall as trees and canopies growing out of their antlers and drawing inspiration from the mangrove forests already present on Hainan. The nature feels both familiar and completely reconstructed. In this exploratory phase, designers use conceptual art to shape and define the design language of this new world. This digital painting by one of the senior concept artists illustrates this process. The team continues generating ideas until they fully believe in the existence of the world they are creating. The idea of a forest offers many lessons for design. A forest is a single ecosystem with many parts that support each other, just as the architecture of a building supports its various functions.
Through the process of idea generation in different mediums, including 3D modeling and computational design, this fantasy world eventually manifests as a physical architectural space. The team faces the realities of scale, function, and the day-to-day operations of the shopping mall. Just as a forest is a unified environment, the building and the artwork are fused into one cohesive space. When visitors enter, they leave their world behind and immerse themselves in a new one.
One of the finished sculptures is of a mother deer and her fawn. The team took the shape language of the story world and stylized facets for their bodies, shaping them until they appeared as though they had always lived in the atrium. The deer’s skin is made of polycarbonate panels with iridescent film applied to the outside, combined with internal lighting panels. The result is an ambiguous form that adds to the mystery of the creature.
Just as a forest transforms from day to night, so does the atrium. Various sculptures become animated with lighting, projections, sound, and music. This forest is highly dynamic and reactive, allowing visitors to interact with it and trigger lighting and sound effects, creating a playful environment that feels alive and breathing. There are many viewpoints throughout the atrium, such as the view from one of the highest balconies. The team has crafted a unified forest that looks beautiful from every perspective.
The centrepiece of the Aura atrium is the Tree of Light, a sculpture symbolizing the life force and energy of the forest. Made up of over 4,000 orbs, each lit with internal LEDs, it forms a volumetric sculpture with countless beautiful pixel combinations. As visitors approach, the tree responds with dazzling sequences of light and colour. The orbs vary in size, from those that can be held in one’s hands to those as large as a small child. William is shown holding one of the smallest orbs, highlighting the diversity in size among the thousands present in the centrepiece. Initially, the sculpture seemed a daunting and complex idea, requiring courage and a touch of madness to pursue. However, at WETA, embracing the crazy and scary often leads to the best ideas.
Another ambitious creation is the Sky Ladder, a golden tree enveloping a 40-meter-long escalator that transports visitors from the first to the fourth floor, offering a panoramic view of the atrium. Its metallic skin mimics the cellular patterns of a tree trunk, appearing heavy and solid from the outside. However, upon entering, visitors are wrapped in a kaleidoscopic tunnel of shifting light, color, and music that harmonizes with their ascent. The team ensured no separation between the artwork and its structure; the cellular frames of the Sky Ladder support themselves entirely, creating a seamless and immersive experience.
The design of Aura was crafted to be visually magnificent while also providing an intimate, multi-sensory experience, engaging visitors’ touch and hearing. Sharing a picture of the large, fluid, tree-like forms that offer rest for visitors, LiWen explains that when people sit around this tree, the glowing orbs nearby light up and dance among themselves, creating shimmering murmurs of light that travel up the trunk to the grand pink canopy above. The intention was to mimic the feeling of being inside a real forest, where sunlight dapples and casts beautiful shadows on the floor, creating a warm ambiance that feels both familiar and entirely foreign at the same time.
The two tall tree deer sculptures also respond to visitors’ touch and proximity, creating the impression that these sculptures have their own voices, singing together in harmony and announcing the presence of visitors around them. The atrium was designed as a 360-degree stage, with all elements coming together to perform a light show in the evening. This includes interactive floor projections and themed animations displayed on a large 30-meter LED screen in the distance. As the forest transforms into an amphitheatre, visitors can find the best views from the balconies. Inspired by a real forest, all the elements perform and dance together as a natural by-product of simply existing and living.
On very special occasions, a VIP guest can be seen triggering the interactive orb to recreate the moment the boy and girl open the portal into this world. From this intimate moment, a grand lighting sequence is activated, causing the entire atrium to dance with lighting and sound effects. This return to the orb and the portal continually reminds everyone of the importance and endurance of the original story idea. These magical orbs trigger many ripples of inspiration, emphasizing their significance in the overall experience.
About the Speaker
Wētā Workshop’s Location Based Experience (LBE) Team
Based in the vibrant creative hub of Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand, the LBE team at Wētā Workshop stands at the forefront of designing and delivering world-class immersive experiences. Wētā Workshop, a renowned special effects and prop company, has carved a unique niche in the global entertainment industry. Named after the New Zealand wētā, one of the world’s largest insects, the company excels in creating captivating fictional worlds that transcend the screen. For over 30 years, Wētā Workshop has contributed significantly to the creative industries, amassing numerous accolades, including five Academy Awards and four BAFTAs. Their expertise spans film and television, digital interactives, public art sculptures, private commissions, and collectibles. The LBE team, a crucial arm of the company, specializes in designing, manufacturing, and installing a variety of immersive experiences. These range from exhibitions, narrative-driven destinations, museums, and art galleries, to cultural attractions, retail spaces, art installations, memorials, themed attractions, and more.
The LBE Team
Katherine Normandy
Executive Producer: Katherine Normandy heads the LBE department with a visionary approach, ensuring that each project aligns with Wētā Workshop’s high standards of creativity and innovation. Her leadership fosters a collaborative environment where creativity thrives, and ground-breaking ideas come to life.
Andrew Thomas
Senior Creative Director: With a keen eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, Andrew Thomas leads the creative direction of the LBE projects. His extensive experience in crafting compelling narratives ensures that each experience is not only visually stunning but also deeply engaging.
LiWen Choy – LB Designer
LiWen Choy brings a unique blend of artistic talent and technical expertise to the team. Her designs are integral to creating the immersive environments that define Wētā Workshop’s LBE projects, blending aesthetics with functionality seamlessly.
Jason Alders – Creative Development Producer
Jason Alders oversees the development of creative concepts, ensuring they are executed flawlessly from inception to completion. His role bridges the gap between creativity and practicality, making sure that every project is both visionary and feasible.
William Baegal – LB Writer and Coordinator
As the LB Writer and Coordinator, William Baegal crafts the narratives that drive the immersive experiences. His storytelling prowess ensures that each project has a compelling and cohesive storyline that captivates audiences.
Kate Wu – Production Coordinator
Kate Wu supports the team by managing the logistics and production processes. Her organizational skills and attention to detail ensure that every project runs smoothly and is delivered on time.
Together, this talented team collaborates with clients, communities, and experts to create extraordinary experiences that resonate with audiences worldwide. Whether designing a blockbuster film set or an interactive museum exhibit, the LBE team at Wētā Workshop consistently pushes the boundaries of what is possible, making each project a masterpiece of creativity and innovation.
