Phenomenal House was Nike Football’s pop-up venue for the 2014 World Cup. In London it took over the sorting office on New Oxford Street for one week in late May, with cage football, a skate park, boot trials, and an archive of Nike football boots. The Rio version, Phenom House, opened on the city’s port on 7 June. We made it internally, Nike Brand Design EMEA with Nike Football, and Nike Brand Design briefed and creative directed the outside agencies, including XYZ and UEP.
Why it looks like this
The boot genealogy. Curator Gary Warnett told designboom the London archive show set out to prove that Nike football goes back to the company’s earliest days. It ran nine timelines across seven eras and put boots beside running, basketball, and training shoes to show where technologies crossed between categories.
Into Risk Everything. Nike’s release for Rio described a yellow carpet leading visitors through an artwork-filled tunnel meant to carry them into the Risk Everything campaign. The tunnel opened into a large hall with the boot timeline, a boot-testing area, and sound effects made to replicate stadium crowd noise.
the objective is to let visitors know that NIKE football stretches back to the earliest days of NIKE
Gary Warnett, curator of the London boot genealogy, source
Press and sources
- designboom: the genealogy of innovation – NIKE football from 1971-2014
- SoccerBible: Nike Phenomenal House London Opening
- Access All Areas: Nike hires XYZ for Phenomenal House pop-up venue
- Sportmondo (repost of Nike release): Nike Opens Phenom House in Rio