There’s no doubt that Sun Yat-sen got about a bit. It is hard to visit a major city in East Asia that he did not at some point live in, visit or have a cup of tea in. And of course there is something of a tug of war between nations to claim him as their own.

Now, I’ve been to a few of these memorial halls and they range from austere mausoleums to more informative visitor centres. Thankfully, this one in Taipei finds itself towards the latter end of the scale.

The exhibition component is divided into two main rooms. To the East are displayed documents relating Dr Sun Yat-sen’s founding of the Republic of China and to the West are the documents related to his visiting of Taiwan. I spent most of my limited time in the West rooms.

This is an extremely conventional exhibition distinguished mainly by the elegance of the display furniture design. There is also little accommodation of overseas visitors in terms of language or interpretation.

There are some quite successful examples of incorporating display into the overall environment.

And some simple but popular forms of interaction that make me wonder why they did not try to include more of this in the gallery itself.

I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the newest major Premier League club visitor centre in Asia on a recent inspection in December.

Now that it’s open I intend to return soon to see how it is being received by the public, but I expect it to be extremely popular – with its mixture of club history and interactive skills games for kids. It is billed as Asia’s first interactive football experience. You can find The Manchester United Experience at The Venetian Macao.

The issue of environmental sustainability is a thorny one. What is sustainable for you, may not be sustainable for me. A tree-hugger’s definition of sustainability is different from an urban planner’s.

Hence it is no surprise that the designer for the Sustainable Singapore exhibition gallery at the recently opened Marina Barrage is keen to define its theme. The gallery suggests that a small and highly urbanized city-state is only sustainable when there is clean air, affordable water, and quality living environment for its inhabitants over generations.

The first gallery describes the world today. The colour of the gallery pulsates between blue (the original beauty of our world), red (the world in distraught) and green (human intervention and remedies).

It is in this context that sustainability is sought. How is Singapore placed in a world like this?

The second gallery is built in the shape of the Singapore River, and tells the story of the river: a polluted commerce center to a clean water source. The story of Singapore River nicely mirrors the environmental story of Singapore: how it evolves from its early days of survival siege mentality, to its present eco-city state of mind.

The third and forth galleries feature water initiatives. ABC (active beautiful and clean), which redefines the roles of water canals in Singapore’s habitat, and the Marina Barrage, which turns most of the city area into a rain collection basin. After all, the paymaster for the gallery is Singapore’s water resource agency, PUB.

The fifth gallery is packaged like a jewel box. This is where sustainability is looked at from different angles: industrialization, waste management, housing, commerce, and nature. A little heavy on the mind, but useful no less.

What I like about the gallery is not the heavily scripted content, but the different moods throughout its journey. Sit down and contemplate under the organic tree; take a peek (or leak?) in the interactive and soundscaped toilet area; and enjoy a walk under the installation like light boxes. Overall, the Marine Barrage gallery makes a pleasurable visual journey.