The weird computers and claustrophobic hallways of Severance

Image: Apple

The computers in the underground office of Lumon are downright weird. They look a bit like an old Mac, but the closer you look, the more strange they become. The display has a touch screen. The blue keyboard has a trackball on it. The goal was to design a device that doesn't make a lot of sense, which would mirror the purgatory-like world that exists only within Lumon's basement.

The article contains information about Severance.

A new procedure called the severance allows workers to split their lives in two after a little brain surgery. They become two people, one who lives a normal life and the other who lives in an office. The design of the office was very important. You have to make sure that the inside and outside world are different enough to make you feel like you're not part of it.

Offices from the 1960s were the starting point. There are beautiful desks and structures. It's just about work. There is a phone, a pen, and a rolodex on the desk. It felt like it had to be that way.

Image: Apple

The offices in Severance look normal at first glance. They are brightly lit with clean white walls and carpeted green floors. Things are a little off in the macro data refinement wing, where most of the show takes place. The four workers are crammed together in the middle of the space because of the large room. Things get even stranger from there. There are rooms filled with 3D printers and baby goats and the hallways were designed to make people lost.

The breakroom is a dark place where employees are punished for breaking the rules. They have to go down a long, narrow, and dimly lit hallway to get to it.

The underground office is meant to be its own little world. Everything in it, from the desks to the snacks in the vending machine to the finger traps, had to be created in-house. The production team designed around 100 different products that were meant to evoke the Lumon aesthetic.

Image: Apple

We are going back to the computers. The Lumon rigs, which employees use to find numbers in a Minesweeper-like program, look like they were hacked together from other machines.

The computers are functional and the actors are messing with numbers on screen. The machines went through multiple revisions so that they were large enough to be a focal point but small enough to not obscure the actors or interfere with their eyelines. They are in this room for three hours in the first season. It had to be fun and special.

When you combine the retrofuturistic computers, labyrinth layout, 1960s decor, and claustrophobic hallways, you have a film that is often reminiscent of security. Even a dance party in these offices takes on a bit of horror, which should be no surprise given one of the main inspiration of Hindle.

It was my Twin Peaks, he says. It is its own world.