Singapore’s Sentosa Island just south of Singapore has been a tourist attraction for decades, but now with the construction of the SG$6 billion integrate resort project, including the marine life park component and ancillary tourist attractions, will become a must see for visitors to the region.

Resort World Sentosa (RWS), has contracted the Sunshine Coast’s Aquatic Environment Systems Pty Ltd (AES) with Crossley Architects Pty Ltd to provide aquarium specialist design and documentation services. These services include assistance to the project architects for master planning of the overall facility through to design of the life support and pool systems, providing architectural and exhibit design, acrylic panel and tunnel design, underwater rockwork and scenery and specialist aquarium waterproofing.

The park will contain some of the largest marine aquariums in the world, and incorporate the world’s largest acrylic viewing panel. Designed to operate on two levels the park provides two distinctly different and separated visitor experiences. At the surface level, interactive encounters will be provided for visitor with the parks dolphins, fish, rays and sharks. Below this a world class aquarium experience is provided which takes visitors from the MXM Maritime Museum to the Open Ocean and back again through a series of environment based ecological exhibits based on the maritime silk route from China to Africa.

A feature of the park is a 600 metre lazy river through the marine park, with visitors floating along for 45 minutes through the parks specially themed environments. Also being incorporated are visitor encounters with rays, viewing and swimming with coral and reef fish and a large reef tank with fish species for snorkel based interaction as visitors drift along on a current flowing through the display.

The park will incorporate many superlatives, the acrylic panels for the project will exceed 500 tonnes, and the total water volume of the park will be around 45 million litres, making it one of the largest parks of its type in the world.

The project is due for completion in 2012.

Crossley Architects Pty Ltd 2010.