Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Osaka Expo
Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Osaka Expo
As part of the immersive motion design team for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, I worked as a motion designer in collaboration with Lab Meta, contributing to the creation of a dynamic visual experience displayed across 50 interconnected LCD screens. These screens were embedded into the architectural structure designed by Foster + Partners and Journey, blending seamlessly with the pavilion’s village-inspired layout. The video screens also had real objects framed in between video screens giving a nice sense of depth.
One of the core challenges of the project was designing a cohesive, panoramic video environment where each screen formed a part of a larger narrative. Although the screens were physically segmented, the content was designed to flow as a continuous background video. To achieve this, I worked within After Effects, using pre-compositing and modular layout techniques to build a base compositions. This allowed us to map each screen’s dimensions and position in virtual space, then render out individual segments of the whole animation for each screen. This process ensured synchronization across the 50 units, creating the illusion of one large-scale immersive display.
The pavilion experience was bilingual, requiring careful integration of both English and Japanese typography into the motion graphics. Text had to be designed with clarity and balance, ensuring legibility without detracting from the visuals or the surrounding spatial environment.
The client provided Figma boards for storyboarding, which helped align our visual timeline with the narrative flow of the pavilion journey. Using these boards as a reference, I created animations that responded to both linear storytelling and interactive touchpoints. I contributed to the design and motion development of interactive touchscreens, implementing marker points for gesture-based navigation and creating animations that responded fluidly to user inputs.
A particularly innovative aspect of my role involved using AI-enhanced tools to bring static photography to life—adding subtle movement, parallax effects, and atmospheric transitions that deepened the emotional resonance of each exhibit zone.
In addition to the main three-minute ambient film loop, I also created short-form video cutdowns for high-traffic hours, where attention spans were limited. These condensed versions preserved key storytelling beats while streamlining the visual density.
Key tools included Adobe After Effects, Figma, and AI-based photo animation platforms, used collaboratively with the broader creative and technical teams to ensure a deeply cohesive and emotionally rich visitor experience.