Case Study · 04

Interactive
Site Twin

Designing an immersive virtual environment to communicate the legacy and vision of Expo City Dubai — three audience journeys, 25,000 visitors, and a permanent installation that reached 25 million people.

Client

District 2020 / Expo City Dubai

Location

Dubai, UAE

Event

Cityscape Global

Reach

25M visitors · 192 countries

01 · The Brief

A Legacy That Needed a Voice

District 2020 — the innovation district born from Dubai's Expo 2020 — needed to communicate its vision, scale, and opportunity to prospective tenants, residents, and investors at Cityscape Global, one of the world's largest real estate events.

A static presentation or printed brochure wasn't going to cut it. The district was still being built. The spaces didn't yet exist in the way visitors could walk through them. The challenge was to make something that wasn't fully real yet feel completely tangible.

The brief demanded an experience that could reach different audiences — VIP guests, commercial prospects, and residential buyers — with distinct narratives, all within a single interactive environment.

Dubai Expo City
Cityscape Global, Dubai

02 · Scope & Formats

One District. Three Audiences. Four Experiences.

The experience was built around four distinct interactive formats — each targeting a different audience need and sensory channel, all unified under a single design language.

01

Reality Portal™

Immersive virtual journeys using the Soluis Reality Portal™ — visitors stepped through a portal into a richly detailed 4K version of the district.

02

Panoramic Cycling Tour

An interactive 180° panoramic tour across multiple screens with a competitive cycling element — visitors raced through the district's key areas.

03

Sales & Leasing App

A touchscreen sales hub app for on-site use, allowing agents to walk prospects through commercial and residential opportunities in real time.

04

3 Curated Journeys

Tailored audience paths — VIP guests, commercial tenants, and residential prospects each experienced the district through a lens built for them.

Creative workshop and discovery process
Creative workshops with architectural and real estate teams

03 · Creative Discovery

Starting With the Audience, Not the Asset

The process began with creative workshops alongside architectural and real estate teams to understand not just what the district looked like, but what it needed to feel like for each audience segment.

VIP guests needed awe. Commercial tenants needed clarity. Residential prospects needed aspiration. Three completely different emotional registers — all coming from the same physical space.

The workshops established the narrative framework before a single environment was built. Story first, technology second.

04 · Environment & Production

Building a City Before It Was Built

Using federated data sources from architectural, planning, and development teams, a centralised visual engagement model was created — a single source of truth that all four experience formats drew from.

Richly detailed 4K environments were produced across both interior and exterior spaces — lobbies, co-working areas, residences, public realm — all rendered to a standard that made the not-yet-built feel completely real.

The production process was deliberately fast-paced and iterative, with regular client review checkpoints to ensure the environments matched the evolving vision of the district.

4K environment rendering
4K interior and exterior environment production
User flow mapping
Audience journey mapping and interaction design

05 · Interaction Design

Designing the Journey, Not Just the Destination

Each audience journey was mapped end-to-end — entry point, key moments, decision points, and exits. The goal was to ensure that no matter which format a visitor encountered first, they received a coherent and purposeful experience.

Interaction patterns were designed to feel intuitive for first-time users in a busy event environment. No instruction manuals. No learning curve. Pick up and explore.

The sales app required particular attention — it needed to serve both the visitor's curiosity and the sales agent's workflow simultaneously, without friction for either.

06 · Outcome

25,000 Visitors. Then 25 Million.

The experience launched at Cityscape Global to 25,000 visitors over three days, generating overwhelmingly positive feedback across all audience segments — VIP guests, commercial prospects, and residential buyers.

The response was strong enough that the installation was extended as a permanent fixture at Expo 2020 for its full six-month duration — reaching an audience of 25 million visitors from 192 countries.

What started as a three-day event activation became one of the most visited interactive property experiences in Expo history.

25K
Cityscape visitors in 3 days
25M
Expo 2020 visitors reached
192
Countries represented
"That was awesome. That was crazy. That was so good."
— VP, Legacy Development & Impact, District 2020

A Three-Day Event Became a Six-Month Legacy

Extended as a permanent fixture for the full Expo 2020 run — transforming a real estate activation into one of the most visited interactive experiences in Expo history.

What's Next

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