The Beautiful Game has found “The Beautiful Dome,” as Science World’s 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer ball transformation is now 100 per cent complete.
On Wednesday, just a week before the tournament kicks off across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, the very last of 131 panels was installed onto the geodesic dome of one of Vancouver’s most prominent landmark structures.
The soccer ball look has been substantially complete for a few days, providing a finished look when viewed from the east, north, and west. And now, the south side of the dome is also fully complete
A crew of highly-specialized rope access technicians first began the installation process during the first week of May 2026, when Science World and the Government of British Columbia made their first public announcement about the transformation. The installation of the accurate replica of the adidas Trionda — the official match ball of this tournament — was overseen by Ontario-based The Look Company.
The banners are not applied to the reflective silver steel surface of the dome directly. Rather, these are hexagon-shaped banner panels that are carefully attached to the hexagon-shaped voids of the external structural system that supports the geodesic dome, which leaves an air space between the temporary panels and the steel surface. This week’s completion marks the project’s on-schedule finish in early June.
This temporary 360-degree, 40-metre-diameter public art installation will be a major visual landmark for the steady stream of mass crowds walking through the area on Vancouver’s seven match days to reach BC Place Stadium. Science World and SkyTrain’s Main Street-Science World Station mark the starting point of the only pedestrian route to reach the stadium entrance — along Quebec Street/Pacific Boulevard to reach the security checkpoint at Carrall Street under the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.
“The Beautiful Dome,” the official name of the installation, is already attracting international media attention, and will likely become one of the most photographed landmarks in Vancouver during the tournament.
Science World’s transformation may also rank among the largest and most recognizable FIFA World Cup-themed landmark makeovers across all 16 host cities across North America — if not the largest and most recognizable of them all.
It is part of the overall strategy of providing Vancouver with the look of a host city, with decorations, banners, and wayfinding signage now prominently found along major streets and at major public spaces and public transit hubs, especially in and near Downtown Vancouver. Some of the most significant and/or unique dressings with official FIFA World Cup branding can also be found at Vancouver City Hall, Vancouver International Airport, and even on Hullo Ferries and SeaBus.
In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized today, Jessie Adcock, the Host Committee Lead and Chief Delivery Officer for the FIFA World Cup Vancouver Host Committee, working under the City of Vancouver, said the giant soccer ball showcases both the city’s technical capabilities and its preparations for hosting major international events.
She said the installation serves as a visible symbol of Vancouver’s readiness to welcome the world for the FIFA World Cup while showcasing the city’s ability to deliver ambitious projects on an international stage.
“The Science World soccer ball, what it does is it demonstrates this, our ability to engineer something so magnificent, but also highlights how beautiful and stunning our city is preparing it to host, you know, these mega events for years to come,” said Adcock during the interview with Daily Hive Urbanized.
The transformation began as a simple idea shared among organizers and partners involved in the local FIFA World Cup preparations. What started as a vision of reimagining one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks eventually grew into a complex undertaking requiring collaboration between Science World, the provincial and municipal governments, the Vancouver Host Committee, Destination Vancouver, PavCo, FIFA, engineers, contractors, and other stakeholders.
Adcock said the project gained momentum as more partners became involved and the concept moved closer to reality. Planning for the installation first began in January 2025.
Now fully complete, the giant soccer ball has become an unmistakable marker of Vancouver’s FIFA World Cup experience.
“When you go down to the seawall and you see how happy it makes people, whether you’re on the SkyTrain, whether you’re driving by, whether you’re walking by, whether you see it from a distance, it really has served as a catalyst to really, you know, build momentum for us,” she said.
As well, inside this giant makeshift Trionda soccer ball is an official FIFA exhibit. This exhibition, called Soccer & Technology from the FIFA Museum, opened at Science World last month and runs through Sept. 7, 2026.
The travelling showcase, straight from FIFA’s main museum in Zurich, Switzerland, marks the exhibition’s first stop in North America. It examines the systems and innovations shaping modern soccer — from video review technology and performance analytics to stadium operations and broadcast production.
There is a display with a cross-section of a real Trionda, which explains the unique features of the high-tech match ball that will be used for this tournament, and an interactive display with a real Conext15, which is the match ball used for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup held only in Canada — a tournament that saw Vancouver host nine matches, including the championship final.
Science World’s transformation adds yet another notable chapter to the long history of Vancouver’s iconic geodesic dome, and its role in some of Canada’s largest events.
Originally constructed as the Expo Centre for the Expo ’86 World’s Fair, the landmark science museum and education centre has spent four decades serving as both a symbol of the city and an occasional venue that enhances major international events. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, the building was temporarily reimagined as Sochi House, a showcase by Russian organizers of the next host city of the 2014 Winter Games.
The building was originally designed as a temporary structure of the World’s Fair, but a decision was later made to keep it as a permanent legacy, with major upgrades and expansions performed to the structure shortly after Expo — for the initial transformation into Science World — and again in 2011/2012.
Science World has also been undergoing major renovations in recent years, with much more work still to come to rehabilitate and modernize the aging structure meant to be temporary.
One of the most visible upgrades performed to the exterior was completed in 2022, when the exterior lighting system on the geodesic dome was removed to allow for thorough cleaning, painting, and the installation of a new system with 651 programmable LED lights. Although the number of lights has tripled, the system uses less electricity than before, replacing decades-old lighting, including aircraft lights installed in the 1980s. That project also involved the work of rope access technicians.
It is unclear whether the nighttime LED lighting system will also be activated with the Trionda layover.
