Singapore, Singapore
Some corners of the natural world are simply out of reach — extinct, microscopic, or buried too deep for anyone to visit.
Global creative group GSM Studios has found a way around that with Exploria, a new 10,000-square-metre attraction inside Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Reserve that turns invisible ecosystems into a walkable, playable experience.
Commissioned by Mandai Wildlife Group and officially opened on March 3, 2026, Exploria is now one of Southeast Asia’s largest nature-themed multimedia attractions.
Rather than housing living animals, it relies entirely on digital storytelling — projection, sculpture, augmented reality and interactive media — to introduce visitors to roughly 250 species rarely seen in mainstream media, from prehistoric giants to deep-sea creatures.
GSM Studios led the project from concept through completion, developing the creative vision and then coordinating the international mix of architects, contractors and technical suppliers needed to build it.
According to Fiona Ng, Managing Director of GSM Studios Singapore, the studio partnered with Mandai from the project’s earliest stages, shaping the design and steering every component through to final installation.
The attraction unfolds across five thematic worlds, all connected by a central hub called Our Interconnected World, anchored by a large digital sphere that hosts an orientation show on the interdependence of life on Earth.
From there, visitors can wander into Realm of the Giants, an augmented-reality encounter with dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures, Micro Worlds, which scales up plankton, insects, fungi and bacteria into illuminated spheres, World of Darkness, a maze-like descent into caves and ocean trenches, Infinite Wonderland, a journey through rainforests and coral reefs, and Bitdeer AI Extreme Frontiers, where sensory simulators recreate deserts, polar ice and high-altitude terrain.
Tying the five worlds together is an RFID-driven gamification layer: visitors adopt a digital avatar, then unlock badges, quests and challenges as they move through the space, turning species discovery into something closer to a game than a museum tour.
Executive Creative Director Nathanaël Meyer frames the project as an attempt to build a new kind of format entirely — neither zoo nor screen — describing the goal as inspiring a deeper passion for the living world.
Montreal studio Dpt., working alongside Singapore-based Electronics & Engineering, built out 87 interactive installations that carry that ambition through the visitor journey, layering hyper-realistic wildlife footage with original gameplay.
GSM Studios brings considerable weight to the project: more than 65 years in the field, roughly 1,000 projects across 120-plus cities, and past credits including the Burj Khalifa observation deck and the touring Star Wars: Identities exhibition.
About the Architects
Attraction planning and design on Exploria was handled by FORREC, a Toronto-based entertainment design firm that began as a landscape architecture practice in Canada in 1984 and has since expanded into architecture, interior design and graphics.
The firm now works across six continents with a team of more than 120 people, and counts Universal Studios, LEGOLAND, Six Flags and Singapore Tourism Board among its past clients.
Exploria adds to a growing footprint in Singapore that already includes Bird Paradise, another wildlife-reserve project FORREC has worked on for the same client.
Project: Exploria and Bird Paradise
Design Team: GSM Studios (Creative Direction, Experience Design, and Content Development)
Attraction Designer: FORREC
Interactive Strategy: Local Projects
Lighting Design: Lightemotion
Multimedia & AV Systems Integration: Electronics & Engineering
Interactive Content Production: Dpt., CraveFX
Giant Show Production: Immersive International
Lighting Installation & Programming: Auxilio Studio
Sound Production: Headspace Studio
Client: Mandai Wildlife Group
