The Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka fused traditional architecture and interactive storytelling to create a visitor experience that reflected the nation’s rich heritage and its vision for the future.
It was recognised as the ‘best large pavilion’ and for having the ‘best exterior architecture’ at the World Expolympics Awards 2025.
London-based AV consultancy Raven AV and production company Done+Dusted deployed SP Grid to create an interactive visitor experience.
Raven AV’s managing director, Dan Roncoroni, says: “We were tasked with helping bring to life the music of Saudi Arabian DJ and electronic music producer, Cosmicat.
“Interaction with the audience was a key requirement, so we began to develop the idea of a laser harp that would play parts of Cosmicat’s music when touched by visitors to the pavilion.”
To create the theremin-style laser harp, Raven AV collaborated closely with Cosmicat to build an installation that could transcend language and cultural barriers.
A series of vertical beams of light created the virtual harp, with LiDAR sensors positioned behind each light to trigger audio and lighting effects when interaction was detected. The sound system utilised d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape.
“When we first received the brief for the virtual harp installation, we settled on SP Grid as our preferred tool,” says Roncoroni.
“At that early stage, we didn’t know how many different elements we’d need to control, but we knew the flexibility of the SP Grid platform would serve us no matter what direction the project went in.”
The final workflow brought together a range of interconnected devices within the SP Grid user interface. Each vertical light beam was paired with a LiDAR sensor that detected hand movements, triggering both a change in light colour and playback of audio samples, whilst ambient layers of Cosmicat’s music played.
“Everything ran through SP Grid,” adds Roncoroni. “It was taking in the LiDAR data, mapping it to the lighting beams and outputting Art-Net control to the LEDs and audio cues in Soundscape. It did all the heavy lifting for us.”
The team used SP Grid’s Grid Studio features during development, completing most of the programming for the project before arriving in Japan.
“We could emulate the LiDAR and lighting data, test the logic and even show the concept to the client without needing to hook up a single piece of hardware,” says Roncoroni. “That ability to visualise and tweak the system before deployment saved a huge amount of time and helped to give everyone involved confidence in the design.”
Using SP Grid for the project also facilitated collaboration. “We could just send a copy of the show file to our show designer, and he could open it and understand the system without needing to be a programmer,” says Roncoroni.
Expo Osaka 2025 marked Raven AV’s first professional deployment of SP Grid, an Roncoroni says for smaller installations, it’s an affordable yet powerful option.
“With SP Grid, we can focus on designing the experience, rather than worrying about control protocols or data handling,” he adds. “It’s become one of those tools that just fits, and it lets us spend more time being creative, which is exactly what you want on a project like this.”
AloJapan.com