In the show, Atlantis was constructed millions of years ago by the Ancients, who eventually abandoned the city in the distant Pegasus Galaxy.

McGuire and Robbins also worked on the exterior look of the city, collaborating with, amongst others, visual effects supervisor John Gajdecki and concept artist Chris Wren.

After SG-1 was renewed once again for an eighth season and a TV series of Stargate Atlantis was also ordered, it was decided that the show would instead take place in the Pegasus Galaxy.

[8] Whilst the city and its discovery were mostly built around the franchise's own mythology, some aspects of the Ancient Greek Plato myth of Atlantis were incorporated into elements of the story.

In developing design motifs for the Ancient Outpost, McGuire was researching crystalline structures when she "came across electron-microscopic images of snowflakes".

[5] Despite this, Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper wanted the Atlantis set to be aesthetically "distinctly different" from the Stargate Command, which McGuire noted "wasn't difficult to do" as she "basically just went in the opposite direction".

In contrast to the "dark" and "claustrophobic" Stargate Command set, McGuire designed Atlantis to have "plenty of light and windows" and be "very open and airy".

[13] The work and architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright played a major influence in both the interior and exterior design of Atlantis.

[8] According to McGuire "It was a nice jumping-off place, because his architecture is so distinctive", specifically citing the geometry of the Lloyd Wright designed Price Tower in Bartleville, Oklahoma as informing that of the Atlantis set.

[17] Having been given the greenlight on November 17, 2003, McGuire had less than 3 months to design and build the Atlantis set in time for filming to commence in February 2004.

[14] From November until February, around 200 people were involved in the design and construction of Atlantis, with building work taking place 24 hours a day and stopping only for Christmas.

[20] McGuire designed the open layout to both maximise the space and so that the Stargate appeared at an angle when viewed from the control and briefing rooms, "rather than flat on, like in the SGC".

Originally constructed on the effects stage at The Bridge Studios, McGuire described it as "a big metal frame structure", built across multiple levels, with numerous rooms, staircases and balconies.

[31][32][33] Although it was ultimately not featured in the finished episode, McGuire had art director James Robbins develop concept drawings of the exterior of Atlantis during pre-production of the Stargate SG-1 season seven finale, "Lost City".

[34][35] Whilst the sets were being constructed, concept artist Chris Wren was hired to work on the exterior design of the city.

McGuire, Wright and Cooper had already established the general shape and structure of the city, as well as outlaying the technology present and "how the various sections interacted".

[36] Wren would go back-and-forth with his ideas to Cooper and Wright, working in a variety of mediums to produce concept art, which included quick pencil drawings, which he would then expanding into full colour artwork.

Wren would also build scenes "with very basic primitive shapes" to help under composition and perspective and then go on to "paint over the render in Photoshop, adding all the ambient lighting and details".

Filmed at 120 frames per second, water coming off of the pier was captured from a variety of angles and subsequently composited into the visual effects shots of Atlantis rising.

[42][47] Additionally, water particles were filmed against a number of different backdrops to be added into various visual effects shots of the city.

[45] The sky surrounding Atlantis was created using photographs taken by many of the visual effects artists, including supervisors John Gajdecki and Bruce Woloshyn.