DEDON - Mysterious Desert

For luxury outdoor furniture brand DEDON, sooii developed a series of immersive Involving Worlds designed to place the products within aspirational, highly atmospheric environments. Mysterious Desert was the initial proof of concept and a world we revisited multiple times over the years. Carved into the rust-red cliffs of a desert landscape, the villa is inspired by mid-century and late-modernist principles and seems less built than discovered. The mood is unhurried and quietly luxurious, with a sense of deliberate solitude. It sits comfortably within the land, suggesting a life lived slowly and in close conversation with the landscape.

My role as senior 3d artist and later lead artist was to create detailed digital twins of DEDON’s handmade furniture and develop the imagery from initial sketches through to final delivery. The project relied on a predominantly full-CGI workflow, combining intricate product construction with extensive natural environments, carefully controlled light and atmospheric effects. Our team experimented with digital landscapes built separately in Houdini, matte painting and full 3d environments in our main software 3ds Max. Later imagery also explored experimental AI-assisted integration of people, adding a subtle sense of life while preserving the calm and seclusion of the world.