Another design project was the Childlike Empress's Ivory Tower and Inner Sanctum. Niemi created a circular shaped tower that looks like a giant, vertical cocoon.

"I wanted the Ivory Tower to have a feeling of spirituality so I designed it from a single, continuous line. Like a sea conch, it has no angles and no straight lines. For me, the circular shape is the purest form," says Niemi. For inspiration, Niemi closely studied the shapes and textures of coral and seashells. Shells, crystallized in rock, also decorate the ramp and entrance leading to the Inner Sanctum, where the Childlike Empress resides.

Only the base of the Ivory Tower and the Inner Sanctum were built in studio. The construction of the whole Tower (which reaches the clouds) was done in 3D animation by computer special effects house Big Bang FX/Animation.

From the outside, the Inner Sanctum looks like a white globe. But on the inside, it resembles an Art Nouveau flower whose stencil-cut petals form an orb.

When Niemi designed the Woodlanders village, he brought in native art motifs from all continents. "I mixed Ojibwa drawings with Mayan and African pictograms and North American buffalo hides with zebra skins. I didn't want an authentic Amerindian village but something that reflects a young boy's active but jumbled imagination," says Niemi.

Another of Niemi's major design and construction project on The Neverending Story was the Flying Machine, which Atreyu and Fly Girl (pretend to) fly all over Fantasia on their quest to stop The Nothing and to find Falkor, the Luckdragon.