Metamorphosis - Cruise Ship Portal

Insight > Interior design
through and above the water. Situated 10m
above the pool is a dive bridge specifically
designed for aerial acrobatics. There are zip
lines that extend from the dive bridge to rock
climbing walls built into the sides of the deck
above the audience. Underwater there are
cameras that capture performances and
project them onto two giant LED screens.
An attraction on board the Oasis of the
Seas, which certainly drew considerable
outside interest, was Central Park. The length
of a football field, it features paths and
wooded glades. On a less aesthetic but
practical level, Central Park has its own
filtration system for removing salt from the
ocean water that hydrates the greenery
allowing the grass to thrive.
“It was a crossroads of creativity,” says
Wilson. “It is probably the one area of a ship
where every design team is represented. One
of my responsibilities was to try and hold that
together and make sure everyone’s vision
didn’t get lost in the management.”
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Wilson is an admirer of the landscape
designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who, with
architect Calvert Vaux, created New York
City’s Central Park. “The key to Olmsted’s
design work is that he never saw a
landscape design as one big idea,” says
Wilson. “It was a whole series of humanscale
vignettes that grow from intimate little
“
Who wants to spend their career designing
simple stuff?
benches and small, private gardens and
grand vistas.” It was a 19th century approach
that Wilson reinvigorated for the 21st
century. “On the Oasis of the Seas, it is a
whole series of wonderfully crafted
landscape vignettes that are revealed to you
with every step along this meandering,
curvilinear path,” he says. “As you walk
along the path, the purpose of the park
changes from being contemplative to being
a place to dine, a place to enjoy sculpture,
and a place to gather as a community. If
you go up to deck 15 and look down on the
park you can see all these components in
their entirety.”
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The innovations did not end there.
Another space Wilson Butler designed was
the 1,390-seat Opal Theatre, where the stage
pushes toward the seats so that “the
boundary between the audience and the
performers becomes very blurred”. The
stage’s arch moves and is made up of two
oval-shaped staircases that rise toward the
ceiling and connect by way of a bridge. All
the parts can be moved to make the front and
back of the large stage one space. The bridge,
where the orchestra plays, descends to the
floor at the start of a show.
Despite the chutzpah of the finished
project, Wilson Butler’s methodology boils
down to a simple approach. “We are part of
an Old World breed where we sit and draw,”
says Wilson. “We go down to Miami and we
will sit there for a week at a time just drawing
and sketching and be able to respond
immediately to reaction and to questions.”
Overall, Wilson is very happy with the
completed Oasis of the Seas, and, given the
record bookings the ship is attracting, so are
the guests. “We met everyone’s expectations
and that is wonderful,” Wilson says
contentedly. “I don’t think there is much we
would do differently.” �