The River of Light is a world class art installation that is produced, arranged and installed by the artist, Bruce Munro i The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. With over 1 million luminaries, the installation will be the largest and most ambitious installation of this kind and will provide the anchor for the area to become both a significant tourism destination and development area. Our task was to deliver the entire wayfinding program.

Covering an enormous site with an 80m vertical difference between the upper plateaus and the wadi bed, The River of Light was always going to be a challenge when it comes to visitor experience and navigation. This dramatic setting and an extremely large foot print has required us to think outside the box and propose a range of visitor touch points that can be accessible across varied terrain and a variety of multi modal journeys.

From ticketing and check in, lower level hiking trails to elevated vantage points, visitor parking as well as retail and fine dining experiences our approach was to deliver an engaging wayfinding system that links all of the key destinations across the site as well as integrating the varied transportation options into a cohesive and intuitive system that makes exploration and visitor experience easier day and night. Key highlights of our design include a large exterior beacon that heralds the destination entrance from afar, a series of lantern like navigational elements that include mapping and directional signage, as well as a complimentary retail signage system.