Total Teamwork - Imagination Ltd.

The history ramps lead you to a room where red "infographics" crowd together in a present-day crescendo of crisis. "We are going nowhere fast," reads the text on the wall. "Average speed of vehicles through London, 1889: 11 MPH. Average speed of vehicles through London, 1999: 11 MPH."

At this point, you are just one-third of the way through the Journey Zone. You haven't even begun to tackle the future. When you've finally experienced the entire zone, you probably won't have the energy to go immediately on to one of the remaining 15 zones (except, perhaps, for the Rest Zone). If you think about all of the work that went into Journey, your head will spin: Imagination did the whole thing -- the building design, the films, the research and content, and the construction itself -- in just 14 months.

Imagination brings a design intensity to its work that gives its productions heft and intelligence -- whether the company is working on an exhibit about the history and future of transportation or on a large corporate exhibition (the firm's bread-and-butter projects). Imagination isn't precious about any of its work. It doesn't consider itself haute couture. "At Imagination, we value really good design," says Caddy. "Design that rubs against art. Not much design is like that. Most of it smacks of my dad putting on a Tommy Hilfiger suit."

The Art of Seamlessness

When you walk into the lobby of Skyscape -- the part of the building where you stand in line -- it's like stepping into the lobby of a building from "The Jetsons." The ceiling is a lattice set with colorful pods the shades and shapes of outsize Easter eggs. Light fixtures are in the lattice and in the pods, as well as running down the walls. TV monitors are sprinkled about -- in the pods, hanging down from the ceiling on armatures, and set into the floor, where you can walk right over them.

The same film is running on every monitor. It's a sophisticated yet silly series of mimed sketches about -- what else? -- standing in line. Wandering around the lobby, among the hundreds of people standing in line, are about a dozen performers. They too are doing funny skits about standing in line.

Just in case you're not catching the mood, there are smiley faces everywhere. Skyscape is the only venue at the tightly controlled Dome with its own logo: five perfectly round faces in a row, each a different color, and each with a different expression of joy (a winking smiley, an astonished smiley, a content smiley, an amazed smiley, and a smiley laughing so hard that its eyes are squeezed shut). The purpose: Sky wants you to be happy.

Skyscape immediately evokes numerous questions in visitors: How did all of this come about? Did the architect put the lights in the pods, or did the lighting designer put the pods in the lattice? Did the graphic designer do the smiley faces first, which then inspired the curvy architectural pods, or was it the other way around? How did all of these pieces come together so seamlessly?

The first step in an Imagination project is to sum up its goal in a sentence or two -- a "brief" -- and to make sure that everyone, including the client, is familiar with that brief. The result: Everyone stays focused. For the Skyscape queue project, the brief was "uncomplicated joy." James Kennedy, who managed the project day-to-day for Sky, uses that phrase. Ralph Ardill, who oversaw the project at Imagination, uses it. And so do the Imagination architect, account manager, and graphic artist who are working on that project.

No confusion there.

Second, for this particular project, Ardill broadened the idea of managing the line to managing the "queue experience." "We wanted to look at the management and design of the total visitor experience," says Ardill. That idea fit with Sullivan's goal: a prefilm setting that would help humanize Sky, as well as put people in a good mood. This kind of conversation, and the redefinition of a job from the perspective of what people will be experiencing, is a hallmark of Imagination's approach.

Third, Ardill and Caddy immediately created a core team -- while the themes were still being developed. This is a critical difference in the way that Imagination works. It means that everyone's ideas are available from the beginning; it means that no particular talent is presumed to be primary -- or secondary.

Then, the team meets. And even with a project like Skyscape, which amounts to a relatively simple interior design, the impact of teamwork is evident. "Often, the lighting designer is brought in after the architect has done the design," says Kate Wilkins, 30, the lighting designer who worked on Skyscape. "Here, we are all involved from the start. If you look at Skyscape, the lighting is integral. The lighting pods are part of the design; they're incorporated into it."