ALIF: THE MOBILITY PAVILION

Client

Dubai Expo 2020

Creative 

Wētā Workshop, MET Studio 

Build of key installations

Wētā Workshop

Location 

Dubai, UAE

Opened

October, 2021

Role on the project

Production Design  

The Mobility Pavilion, designed by the esteemed Foster + Partners, is one of the key themed pavilions of the Dubai Expo 2020. Wētā Workshop lent their creative vision, design and fabrication to a team of creatives that brought the pavilion to life with an immersive exhibition about the history, evolution and future of mobility. Visitors were mesmerised by 50-foot tall hyperrealistic giants and other finely crafted sculptural installations within the pavilion.

As production designer, I designed the key sculptural installations below, from concept design to developed design, alongside the incredible Wētā Workshop team of designers and fabricators.  
 

shamsa & the bedouin girl 

 A delicate, glowing sculpture of a human figure, consisting of 12,000 individual butterflies is suspended from 12m above. The figure is Shamsa, who embodies the past meeting the future, inspired by the metamorphosis of the butterfly. Primitive geometry transform into stylized butterflies, that then transform into a hyperreal, translucent figure - Shamsa. Through a frozen moment in time, her future reaches towards her past, completing an overarching story about mobility.

 design process 

(drawings and images created by myself)

MARE & FOAL

A bronze Mare and an acrylic Foal stand over 6m high at an entrance to the pavilion as symbols of past and future. 

 design process 

(drawings and images created by myself)

EMIRATI COSMONAUT

A cosmonaut 2.4x larger than life hovers over visitors, appearing completely weightless in the section of the pavilion presenting the mobility of information, data, space travel and technological endeavour. The cosmonaut is a thematic representation of the 2020 Emirates Mars Misson. 

 design process 

(drawings and images created by myself)

BAS RELIEF

An engineering and artistic marvel - this 60m long sculpture consists of 48 sculpted panels that stretch down a ramp, charting the evolution of physical mobility from the first civilisations. The Bas Relief is both curving and descending, like an unravelled orange peel, and slightly tilted towards the visitor. No panel has perfect right angles. When stitched together, this precise irregularity forms the descending compound curve.

 design process 

(drawings and images created by myself)

9TH CENTURY BAGHDAD DIORAMA  

A forced perspective diorama depicts an enchanting night setting of the famous Round City of 9th Century Baghdad. No structures of the historic city remain today, so the reimagined model was based on literary sources and historic drawings. Computational design determined the final distortion of geometry that achieve the forced perspective - making the city appear larger and further away than the physical space allowed. A larger than life hyperrealistic sculpture of Al Khwarizmi, inventor of Algebra, sits by the window sill overlooking the miniature city. 

 design process 

(drawings and images created by myself)