A 360-degree dome experience the resurfaced the Boston Globe’s archives in a continuous 365-day journey through history.
CLIENT
The Boston Globe
Projection Mapping | Interactive Storytelling
Boston Globe
GLOBE 365
Challenge
Present more than a century of Boston Globe journalism in a way that would resonate with Hubweek audiences and stand out within a city-wide festival focused on art, science, and technology.
Insight
History is can be easier to connect with when it is experienced through grand scale storytelling. Organizing stories by calendar day creates a familiar structure that allows personal connections to form, whether the moment is historic or intimate. Surrounding users in every direction with significant moments in history can add to the gravitas and awe that those moments deserve.
Our Solution
We created Globe 365, a fully immersive projection experience that translated the Globe’s archives into a continuous 365-day loop. Inside a geodesic dome, visitors were surrounded by headlines, imagery, audio, and video tied to each day of the year.
For Hubweek, the Boston Globe wanted to explore new ways of telling its story beyond print and screens. The goal was not to document history chronologically, but to reframe it through time as we experience it, day by day.
Globe 365 progressed through the calendar from January 1 to December 31, with each minute representing a different day. Stories from across decades were layered together, placing major global events alongside quieter moments from sports, culture, and the arts. Visitors could enter at any point and immediately understand where they were in the year.
Background
Next Project:
Working closely with the Globe’s editorial and archival teams, thousands of assets were curated and organized by calendar day. Headlines, front pages, photographs, audio, and video were woven together into layered, perpetual-motion compositions, with each day treated as its own narrative moment.
The experience was designed for a Freedome HyperDome using full 360-degree projection mapping. Visuals spanned the entire ceiling in a single, continuous composition, creating an all-enveloping environment supported by spatial audio. Design, animation, and video production were tightly integrated to ensure smooth transitions as the calendar advanced.
The system was programmed for automation, allowing the experience to loop continuously throughout Hubweek while accommodating large volumes of visitors. The format also allowed for future extensions, including promoted calendar days, live programming, and social participation tied to #Globe365.
Development
Globe 365 became one of Hubweek’s most visited installations, drawing steady crowds throughout the festival. Visitors spent time inside the dome, often returning to experience different days or to revisit moments connected to their own lives.
By organizing more than a century of journalism around the shared rhythm of the calendar, Globe 365 offered a new way to experience the Boston Globe’s role in documenting history and the impact of their labor in preserving it..
Reception
Contact
BOSTON
144 Lincoln St
Boston, MA 02111
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
San Jose, CA 95136