Despite the somewhat tacky entrance sign, The Goldfish Pavilion is a quite elegant addition to the Giant Panda Adventure – forming as it does one side of the fictional mountain village into which visitors emerge after seeing the pandas and other animals.

First of all a disclosure: I worked on the interpretive concept with Hypsos Leisure Asia and I’m glad to say that the final product is very close to our original idea – finely detailed by Hanson Roberts. We wanted to present the goldfish story in three parts – Wild, Treasured and Celebrated.

In ‘Wild’, we tell the story of how natural mutations were first noticed in captive  carp.

At the heart of the attraction is the Chinese Treasure Box – a visual and environmental metaphor for the esteem in which the scholarly pursuit of breeding and admiring the wide varieties of goldfish is held.

The way in which goldfish have been viewed as objets d’art is underlined by their display alongside artefacts in curio cabinets.

The final Celebrated area looks at the significance of goldfish in Chinese cultural life – especially around festivals such as New Year.

All-in-all a very enjoyable little jewel of an exhibit.

Soon after it opening, we got along to the Giant Panda Adventure. First a disclosure – I worked on the interpretive planning throughout the public areas of the attraction with Hypsos Leisure Asia. So, I was keen to see the finished result.

We wanted messages about how precious the key endangered species that had been selected for housing through the attraction integrated into the environment. Here, as part of the Chinese Alligator enclosure, a message about the role that these “national treasures” play in inspiring art and enriching our lives is carved into a column supporting the viewing canopy.

The concept behind the Giant Panda Adventure is to raise awareness about a number of species that are endangered in China using Ocean Park’s Giant Panda as the draw. The first animals that visitors encounter is the impressive Chinese Alligator.

Kids can collect brass rubbings of the treasures as they journey through the adventure.

Soon you enter a mountain pass as you ascend to a hidden valley where the pandas live. You get glimpses of the elusive creature through a bamboo grove and then …

… you arrive at a kind of panda shangri-la designed by Hanson Roberts. They have taken great care to make the enclosure naturalistic and varied enough to keep its inhabitants interested. There are plenty of places to climb, roll and recline.

Along the way, information is conveyed through signage that we wanted to make feel part of the setting – as if they were clues left by park rangers or villagers along the path until …

… you reach the Research Camp where …

… helpful rangers introduce you to unique aspects of Giant Panda physiology, diet and behaviour. And then we saw the star attraction ambling by ….

… before settling down to have lunch. This was close to the glass dividing the public from the enclosure so we could only think that the pandas are quite at home already.

One problem we spotted was that a laptop with an interactive program for the public had been placed in direct sunlight making it difficult to view.

But at the end of the day, the animals were the real attraction … especially the endearing and active Red Pandas. The Asian Small-clawed Otters that were due to be at the attraction had not arrived yet but when they do they will be even more competition for the Giant Pandas in the cuteness stakes.

Your journey ends at a mountain village …

dedicated to conservation.

The mind-bogglingly big National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan is a great example of the adage that when you have a collection of great, authentic objects you can let them speak for themselves. For instance, who can argue with a jadeite cabbage?

So the exhibits here are very much conventional art gallery showcases with text-dominated graphic panels. And none the worse for that. However, I was intrigued to find that one of the most popular exhibits is the spectacular scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival (traditional Chinese: 清明上河圖; simplified Chinese: 清明上河图; pinyin: Qīngmíng Shànghé Tú).

But rather than display this in the rather traditional way that the vast majority of other exhibits are presented in the museum, they have provided some very effective digital animations at a number of key points along its length. Some are simply beautiful (flying in and around regal pavilions), whilst others are amusing (an old man gesticulates wildly at a boat passing beneath a bridge). I’d like to think that I may have had a small hand in inspiring this exhibit as when I was at MET Studio Design and coming up with ideas for the Hong Kong Wetland Park we designed an exhibit which did exactly this.

As you move the screen over hotspots on the scroll it triggers digital animations and information related to wetland themes. It is one of the favourite exhibits I have worked on.