All 131 World Cup dome panels diverted from landfill into bags and umbrellas

All 131 panels from the 65,000-square-foot graphic wrap that turned Vancouver's Science World into a giant FIFA World Cup match ball are being reused, donated or converted into retail products — with none bound for landfill.

Seattle-based large-format graphics specialist The Look Company engineered and installed The Beautiful Dome, a 40-metre installation completed in May 2026. It became one of the tournament's most photographed landmarks. Removal began in September, four months after completion, and the same five-person rope access team that installed the graphics dismantled the dome over two weeks, allowing the panels to come down intact.

Large-format graphics are typically designed for a single event and discarded. The Look Company says it planned the second life from the outset. That claim is hard to verify independently, but the recovery outcomes are concrete and documented.

Where are the panels going?

The recovered material is split across four channels:

• Seven institutions across British Columbia, including Science World, BC Place and the Museum of Vancouver, have received donated panels.
• The remaining panels went to The Look Company's Seattle facility for cleaning and cutting.
• 24 panels are being packaged whole for individuals and organisations that requested full-size sections of the original installation.
• The balance is being cut with custom templates into 260 tote bags, 100 duffle bags and 25 umbrellas — 385 units in total.

Each finished item carries accessories and a printed label with an individual sequence number. Production is expected to take approximately five weeks. The company has not disclosed unit pricing or expected recovery value against the original installation cost.

What does the design-for-disassembly claim rest on?

CEO Jacob Burke framed the outcome as an engineering decision, not an afterthought. "An installation this size involves thousands of decisions about how something goes together, and every one of those decisions also determines whether it can come apart," he said. "We engineered 131 panels to fit a curved dome. The precision of that design enables us to bring them down clean, sort them and hand them to a museum or a cutting table instead of a landfill. Taking it apart required the same level of care as putting it up, just in reverse."

The caveat is structural. Disassembly worked here because the same team that installed the panels took them down. Clients without rope access crews or a fabricator willing to reprocess material may not replicate the result.

How will the products be sold?

The Beautiful Dome 2026 Collection will be sold through Science World, with 100% of net proceeds supporting its science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education programmes across British Columbia. Science World COO Brian Radburn said: "By preserving some of the panels and transforming others into useful new objects, we are extending the story of this extraordinary project."

The original installation was produced with Destination Vancouver, Science World, the Province of British Columbia, the FIFA World Cup 2026 Vancouver Host Committee and the Vancouver Hotel Destination Association. The Look Company operates production facilities in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, serving retail, sports and event environments — a footprint that positions event-graphics recovery as a service it can bid into future host-city contracts.