A web platform to explore, simulate and manage a city that doesn't exist yet — turning NEOM's Oxagon masterplan into a living, queryable digital twin.
01 Overview & Problem
Oxagon is NEOM's industrial city region — a place being planned and built from zero on the Red Sea coast. Long before a single foundation was poured, the people shaping it — investors, urban planners, leadership — needed to see the plan, question it, and stress-test it. The data to do that already existed: GIS layers, 3D BIM models, population and development forecasts. It just lived in specialist engineering tools that no decision-maker could open.
Three structural gaps made the masterplan hard to reason about: fragmented data — GIS, building models and socio-economic forecasts each sat in their own expert software; no shared canvas — every stakeholder saw a different slice, never the whole; and static outputs — a printed masterplan can describe a city, but it can't answer "what if we densify this district?"
The brief: one web platform — the Oxagon Digital Twin — where anyone from an investor to a planner could Discover opportunities, Simulate scenarios and Manage the build, all on a single interactive model of the region. Its real user wasn't a GIS analyst; it was the decision-maker who should interrogate the city, not decode a file.
02 Goals & Success Metrics
We translated the ambition into three measurable goals, agreed with stakeholders before any interface was drawn, so success wasn't a matter of taste.
03 Personas & Journey
The platform serves several audiences, but two drove the core design. Neither wanted a GIS tool; both wanted answers. Mapping their needs and frustrations kept every decision anchored to a real question someone was trying to ask.
“Show me where the return is — before I open a single GIS file.”
“I need to stress-test density while it's still a decision — not once it's concrete.”
Marco's journey is where the twin earns its keep — a single end-to-end path from a hunch to a decision he can defend. Mapping it exposed exactly where the experience had to hold his confidence.
Asks “what if we densify the port district?” and opens the project.
Toggles land-use & mobility interest layers, reads the twin.
Adjusts density inputs and runs the development scenario.
Reads updated footprint, GFA and typology dashboards.
Exports the view and shares it with stakeholders.
“Is this even the right area to push?”
“Good — the twin matches what I know on the ground.”
“So much to set… am I sure these inputs are right?”
“There it is — density costs me open space here.”
“Now I can defend this in the room.”
Start every project from the question, not a blank map.
Make layers legible enough to build trust fast.
Guide & validate inputs so simulation never feels like guesswork.
Update every chart live from one model — no disagreements.
One-click, on-brand exports built for the boardroom.
04 Approach
Rather than start from screens, I started from the questions each audience actually asks — then worked back to the smallest set of modes, layers and controls that could answer them on one canvas.
Set Discover, Simulate and Manage as the spine of the product — one clear intent behind every door.
Turned raw GIS & BIM into human-readable interest layers — land-use, mobility, utilities, sustainability — anyone could toggle.
Made the 3D twin the permanent canvas, with a light left HUD and floating analytics that never hide the city.
Built a dark-first design language so every panel, control and chart stayed consistent across a data-dense product.
05 The Platform
A user signs in, picks a project, and lands in the explorer. The 3D model of Oxagon fills the screen; a slim left HUD holds the four things you ever need — Area selection, Interests, Base map and Tools — while everything else stays out of the city's way until it's called for.
06 Design System & Foundations
A data product this dense drifts fast without a system. I authored a design language — the foundations, tokens and components every screen is assembled from — governed by five principles agreed up front.
Accurate information and consistent experiences that always deliver.
No obstacles, straight to the point, focused on the target.
The right experience, at the right time, for the task at hand.
Everyone can contribute, regardless of who they are.
Adapts and scales to become anything the need requires.
07 Data & Simulation
Selecting an area opens floating dashboards that sit over the twin without swallowing it — Population Breakdown, Development Intensity, Building Form. Every panel reads from the same model, so numbers, map and 3D never disagree. And because no dashboard predicts every question, users can compose their own charts from the underlying data.
08 Outcomes & Impact
The twin gave planning, investment and leadership a single place to reason about Oxagon, and gave the wider programme a design language that kept every new module consistent as the platform grew.
“For the first time the masterplan stopped being a document and became something we could question — the same model in the room for investors, planners and operators.”
I'd pressure-test the data-viz palette under the live sun-simulation even earlier — colour that survives changing light is a foundation decision, not a finishing one.