Kahramaa

Kahramaa Dana Dome Planetarium

A permanent museum restoration that rebuilt an old dome cinema from its seats to its control system.

KAHRAMAA · JANUARY 2023

01 — Brief

Brief

At the heart of the Kahramaa Awareness Park sat a dome cinema that had been there for years: the Dana Dome. It was where the school groups and families touring the museum sat down and caught their breath — the only "seated" moment in the program.

But the dome was tired. The seats were worn. The projection was an older generation, the light output had faded. The film content was outdated. Powering the room on and off, managing the lights, starting a film — all of it required a technician's hand, which kept the museum team's flexibility low.

Building on the partnership we had developed with the Water Awareness Zone (2021) and the Carbon Zone (2022), Kahramaa asked us in 2023 to rebuild the Dana Dome from the ground up. The brief could be summed up in a single line: "Every corner of the museum has been renewed. Now renew the heart of it."

“If you want to teach a child the history of energy, don't lecture — give them a character they can travel through time with.”

02 — Insight

Insight

In a museum, a visitor sits down once. Everything else is done standing — reading on a wall, touching a screen, carrying a bucket. But in a dome cinema the body slows, the head tilts up, attention widens. If that single "seated moment" is bad, the rest of the museum's effort dissolves into a thin memory.

Renovating a dome isn't replacing a film. A new film watched in worn seats stays flat. An old film in a new projector stays old. A new projector wired to an old media server stutters. Every layer can be renewed, but if controlling the room still requires a technician on standby, the museum team can't comfortably run that space all day. Renovating a dome means renewing every layer at once and turning all of them into a single system.

03 — The Idea

The Idea

We treated the Dana Dome as one whole. Architecture, decor, seating, film, projection, sound, media server and control — none of it was treated as a separate job. All of it was planned and delivered as parts of the same renovation.

1. Architecture and Interior. The room's architectural layout was redrawn, the decor updated. Every seat was removed and built from scratch — not just a new model, but a new layout, a new viewing angle, a new comfort.

2. A 10-Minute 360° 3D Film — Meryem and Her Flying Robot. The heart of the renovation was a 10-minute original film made to be watched in the dome with 3D glasses. Instead of writing a documentary to deliver information, we built a character the audience could care about: Meryem, a young Qatari woman working at Kahramaa in the 2030s. Falling asleep at her desk, Meryem sets off on a time-travel journey with her loyal flying robot companion — back to the founding days of Qatar, discovering the country's energy story station by station, moment by moment. Script, character design, animation, audio and 360° render were all produced by Harikalar. The sustainability message wasn't delivered as dry information but as an emotional journey in which Meryem comes to know her own country.

3. Projection and Media Server. The old projection and media server were stripped out and replaced with new-generation hardware. The image projected across the dome surface — brightness, color, sync — was rebuilt from the ground up.

4. Tablet-Controlled Automation. This part was less about experience and more about operations: every piece of equipment and every system inside the dome was tied into a single automation layer. Museum staff can now switch lights on and off, start films, and stop showings — all from a tablet. Running the room stopped being a technician's job and became part of the museum team's daily routine.

The result: for the visitor, a new film, a new seat, a new image; for the museum team, a new control; for the museum itself, a new heart.

Architecture, Decor and Seats Rebuilt

The Dana Dome's architecture was redrawn, the decor updated and every seat removed and rebuilt from scratch — new viewing angles, new comfort, a new room.

Meryem and Her Flying Robot

The 10-minute 360° 3D film follows Meryem, a young Qatari woman working at Kahramaa in 2030, and her loyal flying robot companion. Falling asleep at her desk, she travels back through Qatar's energy journey moment by moment.

New Projection + Media Server

The old projection and media server were stripped out and replaced with new-generation hardware. The image across the dome surface was rebuilt from scratch.

Tablet-Controlled Automation

Every piece of equipment in the dome was tied into a single automation layer. Lights, films, curtains, sound — all controllable from a single tablet in the museum staff's hands.

04 — Execution

Execution

Renovating a dome cinema isn't one discipline — it's four disciplines stacked on top of each other: architectural restoration, AV hardware replacement, content production and system automation. Split those four across separate vendors and you end up with a Frankenstein dome. Hand them all to the same team and you end up with a single whole.

The Four Layers We Had to Solve

Architecture and interior: architectural design, decor and seats — a physical restoration that redefined both the user experience and the dome's viewing geometry
360° 3D film production: script, animation, audio and dome-geometry-aware rendering — fully produced by the Harikalar team
Projection and media server: new-generation AV hardware, calibration, dome warp/blend setup
Tablet-controlled automation: custom software that unified lights, curtains, projection, sound and film playback into a single control layer

Scope (A to Z)

Concept and experience design
Architectural renovation, new decor and new seating
Full production of the 360° 3D film (script, animation, audio, render)
Removal of the old projection and media server
Install and calibration of the new AV stack across the dome
Tablet-controlled automation software and hardware integration
Logistics, on-site install in Doha and museum team training

Team

Project Lead & Concept: Atilla Baybara
Technology Development: Utku Olcar
Operations: Yiğit Sarı
Client Relations: Şaban Yılmaz
+ Architecture, decor, film production, AV and automation team

Minute 360° 3D Film

Layers Renewed

Tablet Controls All

A→Z

Concept, Film, Architecture

05 — Results

Results

The dome at the heart of the Kahramaa Awareness Park museum was fully renovated in 2023 — from the seats to the soundtrack, from the projection to the lighting controls
Daily operations for the museum team got simpler — tablet control moved running the room from being a technician's job into the team's daily routine
Third permanent zone for Kahramaa in three years — after the Water Awareness Zone (2021) and the Carbon Zone (2022), this was the museum's heart
Script-to-delivery 360° 3D film production handled end-to-end — content, hardware and software all came out of the same team
Renewing the museum's only "seated" moment refreshed the impact of the entire museum — a new heart moment for every visitor