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Challenge

As Arup approached its 80th Anniversary, the world-renowned engineering consultancy wanted more than just a celebration. The brief was to create an evening reception that would position Arup as a modern, forward-thinking partner for business and government - a true “convener of people” that brings together movers and shapers, sparks discussion and inspires action that will create better places for the world’s people to live in. Crucially, it could not feel like a sales pitch.

The audience - CEOs, designers and policymakers - were experts in their own right and no strangers to networking events. If the evening felt like “just another drinks and networking event”, the project would have failed. The challenge was to create something genuinely immersive, intellectually engaging and creatively ambitious.

Solution

Working closely with Arup, we defined the event’s central principle: “Expertise x lived experience”. The evening would combine insight from leading thinkers with the real lived experience of people navigating everyday life in cities.

This led to a theme built around a series of “big questions” about the future of cities: How will we sustainably power megacities? Who owns the data that runs intelligent cities? Who gets priced out of progress? How can we design better futures for our cities?

To deliver the scale of experience required, the event was staged at Lightroom in King’s Cross - a truly huge immersive venue featuring projection across four walls and the floor. Its 28 projectors covered an astonishing 1,500m² of projectable surface, while a single image large enough to fill the room measured 21,000 pixels wide.

Guests were welcomed by members of Arup’s Young Creator network before moving through a gallery installation featuring bespoke content exploring what makes cities great places to live. To reach the main showspace, guests travelled through a tunnel experience combining ambient media, urban soundscapes and a series of short radio plays exploring transport, gentrification and climate change. The experience provided context for the evening ahead while immersing guests in the realities of modern urban life.

As guests entered the main space, they were met by a four-storey animated gallery featuring UK cities, Arup project imagery and provocative questions displayed in six-foot lettering across the walls. What followed was an evening of thought leadership, connection, discussion and inspiration, hosted by Monocle journalist Carlota Rebelo.

After opening remarks from Arup CEO Jerome Frost and Chair Hilde Tonne, guests experienced a major immersive moment: a bespoke film created to take advantage of every inch of the vast projection canvas. Guests found themselves immersed in the life of the city - from full 360° vistas captured with specialist equipment at impossible angles, to close-ups of infrastructure and emotional moments from real lives being lived across the world’s cities. The experience reinforced the evening’s central question: How can we design better futures for our cities?

As the evening progressed, the venue became an adaptive environment, transforming continuously to immerse guests in each discussion topic. Three keynote speakers each explored a major question about the future of cities within their own bespoke visual world. Former Stockholm mayor Anna König Jerlmyr spoke against a 360° vision of Stockholm viewed from the sea. Arup Chief Innovation Officer Raj Patel explored the futures we are designing for through environments ranging from cityscapes to moving code and space exploration. Thomas Heatherwick delivered a talk surrounded by immersive scenes designed by Heatherwick Studio.

Following the keynote sessions, the evening concluded with a final word from the younger generation who will inherit future cities. Arup Young Creator and performance poet Iffat Rahman delivered a goosebump-inducing performance of her poem, Cities of the Future - an inspiring reflection on the wonders and challenges of urban life. As she performed to a spellbound audience, illustrations by Arup illustrator Ahmad Harun sprang to animated life across the walls of the space.

The evening then wound down with drinks, music and discussion between guests, all while immersed in extraordinary city visuals captured by specialist aerial photographer Andrew Griffiths. From beginning to end, every element of the experience took full advantage of the venue’s capabilities, guiding guests through a carefully structured journey from lived reality to expert insight and collective reflection.

Results

The event successfully shifted Arup’s 80th anniversary away from a retrospective celebration and towards an urgent conversation about the future. Arup exceeded its target for VIP invitation acceptances and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from guests.

Guests described the event as “a spectacular evening”, praised the “amazing” presentations and called it “a great way to celebrate the milestone”.

Dr Erin Gill, Arup’s Global Corporate Affairs and Partnerships Leader, said:

“Our ‘Arup at 80’ celebration in London needed to be creatively surprising, beautifully executed, and genuinely meaningful. Instead of offering our guests self-congratulatory opulence, we gave them ideas that will shape the future delivered as part of an exhilarating show. It was a night to remember for all the right reasons.”