Foodsphere. Crafting the Sonic Soul of Riyadh Oases

When &bouqu and GOOD Stills brought us in to design the audio for Riyadh Oases Tahliya FoodSphere, we knew the scale of the brief. The 11,000-square-metre venue — a joint project between Riyadh Municipality and Riyadh Holding — is the first of eight free-to-access Oases planned across the city. Our job was to create the full sonic identity from the ground up: original music, soundscapes, voiceovers, and sound effects.

We started with the FoodSphere theme. Establishing a signature piece early gave us a sonic anchor — a recognisable motif that could thread through every zone and tie the experience together. From there, we composed over four hours of original music, blending traditional Saudi instrumentation with contemporary textures to give each space its own emotional character.

Every themed zone called for a different approach. For The Apiary, which tells the story of Saudi Arabia’s long relationship with honey, we kept the composition acoustic — Oud, Ney flute, and Rubab — to reflect the natural, organic feel of the space. For The Oasis, exploring the cultural roots of coffee, we layered traditional Arabic instrumentation with field recordings captured in the Jazan region, pulling visitors directly into the landscape the zone celebrates.

Beyond the music, we developed interactive hologram voiceovers to bring exhibits to life, and produced and mixed audio for the documentary and digital installations throughout the venue — making sure the auditory journey stayed seamless from one zone to the next.

Cultural authenticity sat at the heart of the whole project. On work like this, the detail matters: a darbuka, riq, and daf are not interchangeable, and the rhythms played on each speak to specific regions and stories within the Kingdom. Getting those choices right is what gives a sonic identity its weight.

FoodSphere reflects something we’re seeing more broadly across Saudi Arabia. In line with Vision 2030, organisations are recognising sound as a core part of how brands are built, remembered, and felt — and projects like this one are exactly where that thinking comes to life.

As Leighla McGregor, Executive Producer of GOOD Stills’ New Project Division, put it: “WithFeeling are our go-to for music composition and audio production. They know how to paint a space with sound in a way that beautifully complements our visual storytelling.”