Compassion sphere appears both as a colourful brightly lit sphere and as an almost black globe. The sphere is constructed around a spiral stainless steel grid covered with stainless steel blinds that are painted black on the outside – making the sphere appear at first to be almost black – and polished on the inside to create a reflective surface. As the viewer moves around it, however, the sphere reveals its colourful interior through gaps in the steel blinds.

The geometrical structure is composed of spheres in three different sizes that are layered within each other. Triangles made of glass, polished/painted steel, and green quartz are affixed and interlaced between these inner layers, and the outer surface of the largest sphere is made of painted/polished stainless-steel blinds.

The appearance of the sphere depends on where the visitor is situated in the surrounding room. The innermost layer of glass is made of a special colour-effect filter glass that reflects light in the glass’s complementary colour and creates an opaque grid from certain perspectives.

A light bulb at the centre of Compassion sphere causes coloured reflections to be cast into the surrounding space – both in the colours of the individual glass pieces and in the colours that appear through the superimposition of the different hues of the complementary colours. The painted and polished steel surfaces help to absorb and bounce the light and colours. The sphere is hung at a 45-degree angle, revealing a circular opening into its centre that creates a focused source of light.