Emirates Pavillion Expo 2020 Dubai
Territory Studio - 2020
Role - Animation, Lookdev, R&D


Territory Studio designed and delivered the bespoke digital content and software programming for Emirates’ flagship pavilion at Dubai World Expo 2020, where we brought all of our combined expertise in movies, gaming and experiential to bear, teleporting audiences into the world of tomorrow.

Located on a purpose-built, 438 hectare site, Expo finally closed its doors in March 2022, having welcomed over 24 million visitors in just six months, from 178 countries world-wide. The installations spoke to a wide range of speculative topics – from aircraft design and experimental materials, to fuel innovations and seamless travel. To ensure the validity of our narratives and the viability of our designs, we undertook extensive research, including a series of workshops on the fundamental principles of flight.

The Pavillion

Night view of the Emirates airline sponsorship retail building with illuminated signage and modern architectural design featuring angled red beams and a glass facade.
Interior space with modern, curved white ceiling featuring yellow patterned lighting. A sleek, futuristic counter with purple lighting accents is in foreground, with small illuminated objects on top. Large glass windows are on left, and there are digital displays and unique sculptural furniture throughout the space.
Modern indoor space with futuristic white pods, illuminated blue lighting, and digital interactive displays, featuring hanging green plants and large glass windows.

The Experience


The installations spoke to a wide range of speculative topics – from aircraft design and experimental materials, to fuel innovations and seamless travel. To ensure the validity of our narratives and the viability of our designs, we undertook extensive research, including a series of workshops on the fundamental principles of flight – and then subjected the content to rigorous and repeated fact-checking by the aviation expert Jonathan Howes.

Modern indoor space with white futuristic structures, seating areas, green plants, and large glass windows.

The Arrival Tunnel

Upon arrival, visitors travelled through an immersive portal, comprising a huge bank of curved LEDs, which set the scene for the experience within. An infinitely looping animation – rendered for both day and night-time states, featured custom built aircraft cruising through a dynamic cloudscape, to emulate a futuristic windowless fuselage.

Two Emirates airplanes flying through a sky filled with clouds at sunset or sunrise.
An interior area with a large curved window showing an airplane flying outside with "Emirates" branding, as seen through a modern, stylish setting with white chairs and decorative lighting.

Science of Flight

A Pepper’s Ghost, housing a stunning LG Ultra Stretch screen, provided the perfect canvas for our holographic aircraft, which was augmented with deep-dive graphics and text, to prime visitors on the physics of flight.

A digital illustration of an aircraft engine with a transparent case showing internal components, set against a dark background with blue grid lines and light streaks, with the Emirates logo in the top right corner and the phrase "Fly Better" in the bottom left corner.
Digital blueprint of an aircraft interior showing seating arrangement, cargo area, and cargo compartments, with Emirates logo and 'Fly Better' slogan.

Cleaner Skies

The Cleaner Skies installation is an immersive experience that demonstrates how future innovations are directly linked to some of the world’s biggest challenges: sustainability, population growth and technological advancements. Visitors will also be able to challenge each other in an interactive quiz about aviation technologies being developed to tackle the challenges of tomorrow.

Large digital screen displaying a game called 'Cleaner Skies' by Emirates, encouraging passengers to test their knowledge on making the future cleaner for everyone, with branding and slogans including 'Fly Better'.

Design Your Perfect Aircraft

A sophisticated and wholly bespoke touch screen configurator, which allowed users to build, customise and fly their own plane. We created a fleet of 20 original concept aircraft, underpinned by extensive research, which were then fully rendered in 3D. Visitors were able to select from a range of different models, fuels and wing types before designing their own liveries and finally taking their unique creations on a test flight.

Sketches of a futuristic aircraft from multiple angles, showing sleek, aerodynamic design with large fins and a circular window.
A concept design of a space shuttle with Emirates branding flying in the sky.

Thrust & Propulsion

State-of-the-art Ghost OLED touch screens and a huge prop engine formed the centrepiece of this captivating installation that allowed visitors to delve into the fuels of the future through a combination of fully navigable, holographic 360° models, pop-up graphics and content-rich microstories about each part of an engine build and it’s technology.

Digital blueprint of futuristic aircrafts, including a large airplane, a fighter jet, a drone, and a spacecraft, with metrics for speed, fuel consumption, comfort, and passengers.
A series of digital illustrations showing the internal components and design of electric and hybrid engines, including detailed close-ups of engine parts, animations of engine operation, and comparisons of different engine types.
Interior of a modern science or technology exhibit, featuring interactive display screens and a large cylindrical structure with dynamic lighting effects.

Future Lab

An arresting combination of robotics and immersive digital content, demonstrating leading-edge innovations that will make aircraft lighter, faster and stronger – from biomimetics and self-healing materials, to generative design. This installation featured an array of robot controlled experiments within a futuristic lab setting, augmented with screen content – all of which was initiated by the user, requiring precise choreography, sequencing and testing upfront.

A digital billboard displaying a futuristic geometric design with dark and blue tones, set against a digital background with blue and purple gradient.
Futuristic digital interface displaying 'Future Lab' with an introduction about innovations in materials and technology, and a profile for Béatrice from Paris.
Futuristic digital screen displaying analysis of a blended wing design with wireframe diagrams of the fuselage and wing structure, showing measurements and efficiency statistics.

Airport of the Future

An immersive journey through the airport of the future, allowing audiences to discover first-hand how smart technology, architecture and design will transform the entire passenger experience, incorporating facial scanning, interactives, cut-scenes and dynamic fly-throughs.

A digital screen displays an air traffic control system with green airplane icons on a dark background, indicating operational status as green. There is text explaining how aircraft contribute to emissions and how artificial intelligence optimizes altitude to reduce noise and fuel emissions. The background features a wireframe image of an airport terminal and control tower.
A digital illustration of a solar farm with a wireframe structure and trees below, displaying energy consumption information, operational status in green, and 3000 kWh energy output.
A futuristic airport terminal model with multiple levels, bridges, and a large curved runway or taxiway. The scene is dimly lit with a blue hue, and there are small vehicles and structures scattered around.

Experience your tomorrow

A multi-sensory VR experience, which took visitors aboard a virtual flight in the cabin of the future. Transitioning from the real world into the imaginary realm, a haptic interface enabled users to explore a suite of inflight features designed to enhance passenger experience and wellbeing, including – entertainment and communications, biometric analysis, windowless fuselage with alternate vistas and a fully immersive sound shroud.

Interior of a modern, futuristic room with four white chairs, each equipped with virtual reality headsets, and a wall with the Emirates logo.

Credits:

Territory Studio

Creative Lead –  Clayton Welham + Ambrogio Bergamaschi

Creative Technology Lead - Paul Boulding

Production Team – Sue Dhaliwal + André Espinet + Amy Smith

Resourcing - Aleksandra Kazmierczak + Arran Adam

Creative Partners- Creative Technology London - Pulse Group

Graphic Design - James Woods

3D Artists and Motion Designers - João Lucas + Alex Blomeley + Ambrogio Bergamaschi + James Mathias + Chris Shone + Jacob Wrigley + Alessandro Rusthigi + Edoardo Taloni

3D Modelling - Brett Lewis + Alex Blomeley

2D Type Animation - Chris Shone

Unreal Engine Artists - Rick Hartley + Dean Clarke + Kenneth Maclean

Script Writing - Alex Osman

Aviation Expert - Jonathan Howes