Turn Key Tanks Concrete Built Acrylic Panels Artificial Rock

Early Yangon Aquarium concept by Surbana International Consultants — the two-building complex, aquarium and retail.

Early pencil sketch cross section by Reefscape / M.J. Murphy Ltd.

Yangon Aquarium concept — Surbana / Reefscape / M.J. Murphy Ltd.

The Yangon Aquarium — Myanmar

Location: Yangon, Myanmar

Client: Yangon Aquarium — via Surbana International Consultants, Singapore

Design Partner: Mike Murphy — M.J. Murphy Ltd

Role: Aquarium interior architecture, exhibit design, visitor experience, life support concept — awarded turnkey design & installation subcontract

Year: 2013–2016

Project Value: USD $25 million

Status: Concepts adopted; contract provisionally awarded subject to final negotiation. Terms not agreed; negotiations ceased. Project did not proceed.

The Appointment

In December 2013 Reefscape was approached by Surbana International Consultants — one of Singapore’s foremost architectural and engineering practices — to provide specialist aquarium design input for the proposed redevelopment of the Yangon Aquarium in Myanmar. Surbana’s proposal comprised two buildings: one housing the aquarium, the second accommodating food and beverage and retail operations. The total project value was USD $25 million.

Reefscape’s brief was to refine the internal architectural layout of the aquarium building, advise on exhibit design and visitor experience, and provide the specialist life support and biological systems concept that would make the aquarium financially viable to build and operate at the proposed budget.

The Presentation

Reefscape presented its credentials and initial design concepts in Yangon to a room of approximately twenty people — Surbana’s architectural team and the client group together. The presentation included Reefscape’s concept video and introduced the biological and technical methodology that underpinned the proposed approach.

The room stood up. All twenty of them — architects and clients together — a spontaneous response to a concept presentation that, in a professional context, almost never happens. It is the kind of moment that tells you the thinking has landed.

Reefscape was subsequently invited to develop a full design proposition for the aquarium’s specialist interior spaces, exhibits and visitor experience.

The Design

Two aquarium design concepts were developed with Mike Murphy of M.J. Murphy Ltd, the senior consulting designer Reefscape brought onto the team, whose concept work was central to both. Both were presented to the client team and warmly received. The second was adopted immediately with minimal changes.

Underpinning the design was Reefscape Rock™ — Reefscape’s proprietary substrate, developed under an Australian Government R&D grant and used in every Reefscape installation. It is the reason a USD $25 million budget worked.

Provisionally Awarded

Reefscape was provisionally awarded the contract for the design and installation of the aquarium, subject to final contract negotiation — a turnkey subcontract drawn against Reefscape proposal 12719B.

Reefscape’s number was the problem. The proposal came in at a cost a conventional aquarium build could not reach — because it wasn’t a conventional aquarium build. Reefscape’s approach does not require the scale of plant and equipment a reviewer expects to find, and an equipment list reflecting that reads, to a conventional eye, like a list with things missing from it.

Reefscape’s own view is that this is what cost the project: a budget nobody could quite believe, put forward by the smaller name in the room. When a number strains belief, confidence tends to go with it.

Reefscape and Yangon Aquariums could not reach mutually agreeable terms, and negotiations ceased. Surbana confirmed the position in writing in March 2016. The aquarium did not proceed as designed, and Myanmar’s political situation — ultimately the 2021 coup — closed the door on the project altogether.

What This Project Represents

Reefscape designed a USD $25 million aquarium that worked financially, and was provisionally awarded the contract to build it. What made the numbers work was a methodology that cannot be verified by reading an equipment list.

Surbana International Consultants confirmed the work in writing: that Reefscape and M.J. Murphy Ltd developed the preliminary building concept design, went on to deliver the interior exhibit design layout and specialist technical advisory, and that Reefscape was provisionally awarded the contract. They closed by saying they looked forward to working with the team again at the earliest opportunity.

And the methodology is no longer untested. Reefscape Rock™ has been running in installations for over fifteen years — the Toorak residence, the Koh Samui reef aquarium, the Coral Alive restoration program — with water quality data behind it. The evidence is on this site.

If you are developing an aquarium, a public marine experience or a large-scale aquatic environment and you want to understand what Reefscape Rock™ can do for your budget — the conversation starts with a call.