Mandai Exploria

What is it

Exploria is Southeast Asia’s largest indoor nature-themed multimedia attractions, located within the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, a destination that includes the Singapore Zoo, Bird Paradise, Night Safari, and River Wonders. Opened on March 3, 2026, the attraction invites visitors into five immersive worlds exploring Earth’s ecosystems, from prehistoric megafauna to deep-ocean bioluminescence to microscopic life.

Dpt. produced the full interactive and digital layer, the content and systems that visitors actually see, touch, and respond to across every zone.

Scope

Dpt. designed and produced 87 installations spanning Exploria’s five worlds: Realm of the Giants, Micro Worlds, Extreme Frontiers, Infinite Wonderland, and World of Darkness. The work encompassed several hours of original 3D animation and video content that react to visitor movement and presence.

Beyond content, Dpt. built the gamified visitor journey that threads the entire experience together. Each visitor receives an RFID wristband linked to a personal digital avatar. As they move through the five worlds, they activate installations, unlock hidden content, earn species badges, and accumulate points through real-time challenges, all feeding back to the Biopool, Exploria’s central hub, where a four-metre suspended LED globe pulses in response to collective visitor activity.

Production at scale

Delivering 87 installations across five thematically distinct environments over 100,000 square feet required tight coordination between narrative design, technical development, and on-site integration. Dpt. deployed a team of 34 across the full production arc, from concept development and prototyping through content creation, systems engineering, and commissioning in Singapore.

What Dpt. delivered

All digital content. All interactives. The connective tissue between the visitor and the story… the layer that transforms architecture and scenography into a living, responsive environment.

Exploria is a 100,000 square foot digital ecosystem where content, interaction design, and real-time data operate as a single integrated system.

Project facts

• 87 interactive installations
• 5 themed worlds
• Over 200 animals covered
• Several hours of original 3D animation and video content
• Gamified visitor journey: RFID wristbands, avatars, species badges, real-time challenges
• 100,000 square foot indoor attraction
• 34-person production team
• 3.5-year production timeline
• Opened March 2026, Singapore