To develop narrative experiences across three distinct commissions at Expo 2020 Dubai: the UK National Pavilion, the UAE National Pavilion, and the Mobility Theme Pavilion.

Three stories, three design teams, within one extraordinary global event.

Narrative Masterplanning | Research | Content Development | Scripting | Design Integration

For the Mobility Theme Pavilion, working with Foster and Partners, we led the concept masterplanning, undertaking field and desk research and convening a cross-disciplinary group of experts from science, technology and culture to explore what the future of mobility actually means. Not just how people, information and goods move, but what movement means for human connection, for cities, for the planet. That research and expert engagement became the narrative and thematic foundation for the pavilion concept and the wider Expo landscape around it.

For the UK Pavilion, working alongside Es Devlin's extraordinary architectural vision, a structure inspired by the Stephen Hawking Breakthrough Message, an idea of communicating to new intelligences listening across the universe. We developed the research, scripting, content and design integration that gave the pavilion its narrative spine. The brief asked what Britain's role in the future of space exploration looks like and what the UK has to say to the world at this moment. We translated this ambitious theme into an experience that felt both intellectually serious and deeply moving.

For the UAE National Pavilion, we developed the core narrative and content for a pavilion celebrating the UAE's extraordinary trajectory, from its founding vision to its ambitions for the next fifty years, finding the human story inside a national narrative of remarkable scale and speed.

Expos are unique narrative spaces, with huge numbers of visitors, spectacular architecture and concentrated high-tech media.

They are one of the most demanding tests of a narrative methodology's flexibility and robustness. Big narratives, powerful human stories and memorable experiences are essential to gain attention.

The Mobility commission added a new dimension – the need to synthesise highly contested and fast-moving ideas about the future from across multiple disciplines into a coherent thematic vision.

The core Narrative Direction process still applied: understand the vision, find the story, frame it clearly, shape it across every medium, hold it through production.

Client(s): Dubai Culture, UK Department for International Trade

TGA: Narrative Masterplanning, Research, Concept Development, Content Development, Scripting, Design Integration

Partners: Foster + Partners (Architecture), Es Devlin Studio (Architecture), Avantgarde Studio (Exhibition Design)