The Challenge

As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) prepared to move into the Olympic House, their new institutional home in Lausanne, they wanted the building’s central atrium, the Agora, to create a welcoming experience that transmitted their mission, values, and global footprint.

We were tasked with crafting a multimedia experience that honoured the spirit of Olympism and equally engaged both first-time visitors and frequent guests as well as staff. This compelling storytelling around the Olympic Movement needed to complement the Olympic House’s iconic architecture and the curved walls of its central Agora.

The Outcome

We crafted an immersive multimedia experience based on a series of different use cases to transmit the values of the Olympic Movement to partners, visitors, delegations, and staff. 

Its content library and various modes allow for frequent and first-time guests to engage with a new experience upon each viewing. These range from artistic and emotionally powerful experiences like the Unity Ribbon, to storytelling modes that showcase its universality and the global footprint of the organisation.

By cultivating a deep knowledge of the IOC’s values and culture, we designed a showcase of the best of Olympism, both past and present, so that viewers could understand its reach, impact, and the powerful international collaboration that takes place within the Olympic House.

Understanding the Olympic Movement

More than just an event every two years, the Olympic Games are part of an ongoing movement of excellence, friendship, and respect. Our solution needed to transmit the IOC’s global footprint, history, and extensive activity. To achieve this, we engaged in an in-depth discovery and collaboration process to develop a detailed understanding of their mission and values. This was fundamental in being able to design a storytelling experience that represented the institution’s celebrated legacy while also welcoming new audiences and continued innovation.

Because the Olympic House receives a variety of visitors, from international delegations to partners, we identified the need for multiple special modes that could engage repeat and first-time guests alike, and that would support ad hoc customization for special events and circumstances.

Developing a content architecture

Thanks to the IOC’s history and geographic reach, The Olympic Multimedia Library (TOML) has one of the world’s largest photographic collections. Creating an effective content architecture required reviewing tens of thousands of images and analysing, categorising, and eventually curating more than 4,000 photos that best spoke to the Olympic spirit. This methodological and technical approach led us to identify lesser-known gems within the collection and to define a powerful narrative framework.

To showcase the diverse activities and events that make up the Olympic Movement, we developed a palette of storytelling modes focussed on the institution’s core values. Based on our analysis of how visitors experience the space and its various use cases, we designed a content architecture and UX and UI concepts to create an interface that communicated Olympism in a dynamic, intuitive, and comprehensive way.

Universality 

In order to visualise the global footprint of the Olympic Movement, we developed a mode to present the movement’s impact across the world. Bringing IOC ’s vision of universality to life, this dynamic media and information-rich world map engages viewers and showcases the IOC’s unique role as one of the pioneering institutions focussed on generating unity and peace between nations and cultures. It does so by featuring more than 300 points of interest, including National Olympic Committees, International Sports Federations, and past editions of the Olympic Games as well as upcoming ones.

Timelessness

Along with representing athletic excellence, the Olympic Games are characterized by a spirit of international cooperation and shared excellence. The Olympic Games have also pushed societal, cultural, and technological progress throughout history. A powerful narrative thread, spanning sports and events, is the human emotion and connection felt by both the athletes and the audiences watching them.

We developed an experience that chronicles this journey across history, putting iconic images from different Olympic Games in dialogue with each other to showcase the triumphant, emotional, and powerful human experiences that are shared across nationalities, Olympic Games editions, and sports, as well as the parallel evolution of society.

Athletes in Action

In addition to conveying the IOC’s history and legacy, we also wanted to feature an experience that demonstrated that athletes are at the heart of the Olympic Movement. In motion each day, with sports competitions happening 24/7 across the world, these athletes carry the metaphorical Olympic Torch.

Along with curating existing content, we identified the need to create a captivating representation of Olympism in an emotionally impactful, visually stunning, and wholly original way. It took the form of a serene and mesmerising audiovisual experience that flows across the different displays of the Olympic House.

Our artistic interpretation communicates the essence of sports through the movement of athletes. Using advanced motion capture technology to record a series of sports that appeared in the first Summer and Winter modern Olympic Games, this data was then converted into an energetic and fluid animation of particles. Blending Olympic colours and sporting events, the abstracted piece represents an ever-moving institution and honours the athletes who serve as its ambassadors. By not focussing too literally on a single athlete or sport, the animation’s sublime aesthetics deliver an immersive and inspirational experience that connects with all viewers.

Adaptability and forward-thinking growth

Because the Olympic Games are an ongoing and forever active movement, the project required an updatable and scalable framework in the form of a CMS where new content can seamlessly be added. Designed as a live system rather than a video, it gives the IOC the power to push and pull footage to and from the feed at any moment and allows for the experience to be adapted in order to personally welcome visiting guests and delegations. Thanks to this flexibility and instant responsiveness, the system will continue to grow and develop alongside the institution and its needs.

Advanced technological solutions

Designed in the shape of an athlete in motion, the Olympic House is characterized by its unique curvilinear spaces. Besides the design challenge of creating an installation that visually complemented the architecture, this presented the technical challenge of selecting a display technology that would allow for a fluid, flexible, and immersive experience. Our extensive research into state-of-the-art multimedia systems led us to select bendable OLED displays as the most appropriate solution. Bringing our audiovisual expertise to our partnership with the interactive media experts at iart, we were then able to supervise and collaborate on every step of the implementation process.

The Olympic Experience was for us a chance to develop and implement a unique multimedia experience that fits both visually and thematically within the larger Olympic House. Located in the Agora at the heart of their headquarters, it allows the IOC to create an atmosphere that welcomes visitors and effectively communicates their institutional values and purpose. 

Using various modes to immerse and engage with partners, delegations, and staff, its adaptability and different touch points help viewers understand and connect with the IOC’s mission. Transmitting the power of the Olympic Movement, it engages its audience not just with the sports that compose the Olympic Games but also the spirit of excellence, friendship, respect, and international cooperation that they represent. 

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Want to know more?

To discover more about this project and how we can work together, please contact us at newbusiness@studiobanana.com