We drew inspiration from scaffolding, temporary spaces and structures that signal the start of an event, such as campfires. Recognizing that primary reason people go to TED is for the talks as well as the related social activity, the theater offers more than 16 different seating options, including ringside benches, lounge seating groupings, rows with combination of benches and chairs, and a standing room area in the back row where people can blog without disturbing the rest of the audience.
Closer to the front row, we have designed custom built floor lounges that are inspired by the social and informal nature of TED's New York office and bean bag lounges.
The theater is comprised of smaller components that can be repeatedly assembled and disassembled. The majority of the components will be made from wood (Douglas fir). We worked with Nussli to develop all of the component parts to enable rapid deployment, load-in and load-out. Nussli is using a computer aided cutting machine, which will result in only about 2% waste once all of the material is cut and processed.