ICRAVE was awarded the commission to design the interior experience of the Sphere. This entailed all the interiors, the lighting, and the wayfinding. Knowing that the Sphere was reinventing the live music experience, we understood that the task was to create a world within which this new format could exist. Early in the project, someone had mentioned that this was the largest spherical object ever built. That struck us about the magnitude of what this undertaking was trying to achieve from an architectural and engineering point of view and from a technology and experience POV as well.
We thought a lot about how to land it as a moment in time, placing it on this planet and that brought us to really thinking of it as a celestial object in space. We wanted the guest to be transported as soon as they entered the Sphere. The idea of limitlessness, velocity and motion were aligned with the dramatic nature of the vaulted spaces and the experience guests were coming to share. With that we understood that the interiors would need continuous curved lines and continuous indirect lighting that can be controlled and programmed to create desired effects.
That led us to using lighting to paint the space and introducing the reflective floor to accentuate the sense of limitlessness and ethereal placemaking. Lighting became the cornerstone of every decision, food outlets became beacons in a liquid black space, entries become spherical portals to move through and even messaging that is reflective only become moments of discovery as light casts against them to reveal mathematical equations used to create the Sphere.