Role
Senior Product Designer

Project Space
Interactive Mobile Design
Education
B2C
Growth Design

Story of the Forest was a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore from 2016 to October 2024. As a Senior Product Designer at teamLab, I led the design of an accompanying app to enhance visitor engagement, encourage active participation, and elevate the interplay between art, nature, and technology.

This large-scale digital installation transformed the museum’s Glass Rotunda into an immersive environment celebrating Singapore’s native flora and fauna. With a 15-meter-high domed ceiling, a bridge spanning the dome, and a 170-meter passage, visitors embarked on a visually stunning journey that seamlessly blended art, nature, and interactive technology.

The exhibition featured a dynamic environment that evolved from morning to evening and between seasons, allowing visitors to interact with the artwork as animals responded to their presence and the scenery transformed.

We hypothesized that an interactive app would:

• Encourage active participation, creating a personalized and engaging experience.

• Inspire curiosity about Singapore’s biodiversity through a blend of education and play.

• Ensure accessibility for all ages, languages, and cultural backgrounds with a seamless, user-friendly design.

Interactive App Concept
We designed an app that allowed visitors to “capture” virtual plants and animals from the exhibition using their mobile phones. This interactive feature turned their experience into a game-like journey, enabling users to create a personalized digital field guide of the flora and fauna they encountered.

Educational and Playful Design
The app blended fun with learning, offering detailed information and sound effects for each captured species. This enhanced engagement while fostering awareness of Singapore’s biodiversity.

User-Centered Design
With accessibility for all ages in mind, particularly children, the app featured simple navigation, visual cues, and interactive animations to ensure ease of use for visitors from diverse backgrounds.

Seamless Integration with the Exhibition
The app reflected the forest’s serene aesthetics and synchronized with the exhibition’s real-time changes, creating a cohesive and immersive connection between the physical and digital experiences.

• Exhibition Duration

  8 years

• Annual Visitor Growth

  160%

• App Downloads

  8M+

Impact

• Enhanced Visitor Engagement: The app encouraged active participation, increasing interaction with the exhibition and deepening the visitor experience.

• Improved Accessibility: Its intuitive design made the exhibition inclusive, reaching diverse audiences and breaking age and language barriers.

• Stronger Connection to Nature: Interactive features fostered curiosity and appreciation for Singapore’s biodiversity, creating meaningful emotional connections.

Learning

• Technical Refinement: Achieving seamless functionality required rigorous testing and fine-tuning of vibrations, animations, and motion detection.

• User-Centric Design: Observing visitor interactions reinforced the importance of an intuitive, responsive experience in maximizing engagement.

• Blending Art / Technology: This project underscored how immersive digital experiences can bridge nature, education, and interactive storytelling.

This exhibition remains a landmark project, merging art, technology, and nature to create an unforgettable, user-driven experience.