Wrapping a Theatre in Light: NagaWorld's Projection-Mapped Stage
Inside the NABA Theatre at NagaWorld, Phnom Penh — a 2,000-seat venue billed as Cambodia's first theatre with full 360° 3D projection mapping, with video concepts and environment design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound.
The NABA Theatre at NagaWorld, Phnom Penh — billed as Cambodia's first theatre with full 360° 3D projection mapping. Studio Bound shaped the video concepts and environment design.
Not every stage I work on is made of timber and steel. Some are made of light. Around 2019, my studio did the video concepts and preliminary designs for the NABA Theatre (Nations Arts Bayon Academy) at NagaWorld in Phnom Penh — a 2,000-seat venue in the Naga2 development, billed as Cambodia's first theatre with full 360-degree 3D projection mapping. We worked on the dome, walls and ceiling, with Singapore's CraveFX and installer Showtec doing the build.
A room that becomes a screen
A projection-mapped room flips the usual logic. You aren't building objects for light to fall on. You're designing surfaces for light to transform. The architecture is the canvas, and the "set" can change completely from one scene to the next — temple to open sky — without a single piece moving.
A projection concept wrapping the theatre's surfaces — here, an Angkor Wat scene mapped across the room. Concept and environment design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound.
You have to think in two layers at once: the permanent geometry of the room — every curve, cornice and seating tier the light lands on — and the shifting imagery that wraps it. Get the geometry wrong and the best content falls apart on the surface. Get it right and the audience forgets there's a building there.
Different projected scenes transform the same NABA Theatre interior. Concept and environment design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound, realised with CraveFX.
The other end of the range
NABA sits at the opposite end of my usual work — physical, kinetic stages at one end, fully media-driven rooms at the other. The job doesn't really change with the material. I'm still designing everything an audience sees, whether it's carved in timber or thrown in light.
