Billed as Asia’s first adventure-based wildlife park,
Rainforest Wild Asia aims to immerse visitors into the
rainforest ecosystem, with invisible barriers, elevated
walkways, flexible habitats and chance encounters with animals
The design of the park and walkways maximises the chance of animal sightings / Mandai Wildlife Group
When the Mandai Wildlife Group began planning Rainforest Wild Asia in 2017, their vision was to create a park that made visitors feel more like they were trekking through a living rainforest than visiting a zoo.
To create this new addition to Mandai Wildlife Reserve in Singapore – which also includes Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Wonders and Bird Paradise – they teamed up with landscape architecture practice Grant Associates, and animal conservation and zoo design specialists CLR Design. Together they came up with a concept that would allow visitors to choose how they explored the park, with the options of rugged trails, raised wheelchair-accessible walkways and adrenaline-fuelled climbing adventures.
The 13-hectare park, which opened in March 2025, features open, naturalistic habitats where 36 species of animals – including sun bears, Malayan tigers and bearded pigs – roam freely, without visible barriers, and flexible habitats that see animals rotating through different enclosures at different times of the day.
It was important to work with nature in the design of the park, explains the Mandai Wildlife Group’s Michelle Yik, lead designer of Rainforest Wild Asia.
“In most other development projects, the architecture is the hero,” she says. “But in this case, we worked around getting the buildings to disappear seamlessly into the landscape, because the trees are the real heroes.”
The project team retained more than 300 existing mature trees and planted more another 7,000 new south east Asian trees and palms across the park.
Animal habitats have been designed to resemble natural ecosystems as closely as possible. The Karst enclosure, which features 20m-high jagged artificial limestone formations, houses the park’s Francois’ langurs, and is based on the cliffs of Vietnam and southern China where the langurs originate. Visitors can observe the monkeys from the Karst Lookout viewing platform, or from the more adventurous Karst Loop Trek. Those wanting a high adrenaline viewing experience can take part in the Wild Apex Adventure, a guided tour that involves scaling cliffs via tricky scrambling paths and a roped climbing route.
Flexible habitats One of the differentiating factors of the park is the introduction of flexible habitats, says Yik.
This allows species such as the babirusa, bearded pig and red dhole to be exhibited in the same habitats at different times of the day, creating opportunities for visitors to see the animals in a more dynamic setting and leading to unexpected encounters.
Yik explains how the chances of viewing animals are maximised by the design of the visitor routes through the park.
“Take the tiger habitat,” she says. “We have designed viewing spots that coincide with interesting or more attractive locations for the tiger to be at. Whether it’s from a bridge or from the elevated walkway, visitors have that opportunity to see the tiger close up.
“The whole idea of not really knowing where the tiger is adds to the level of excitement and idea of trying to spot animals in the rainforest.”
Another differentiating factor of the attraction is the ability to experience it in three different ways, continues Yik.
“You can experience it through an elevated walkway. It’s Universal Design friendly – whether you’re in a wheelchair or a parent with a stroller, it’s very easy and accessible.
“For someone who is a little bit more adventurous and wants to get off the beaten path, we have treks where you get to climb across logs, explore streams and come closer to the ficus trees.”
The paths are designed so that they intersect at different point, allowing parties to split up and then meet up again further along the trail. The park’s Canopy area – which houses Philippine spotted deer, Javan langur, Siamang and red-shanked douc langur – features the Langur Walking Nets – 180 square metres of walking nets suspended across the spiral elevated walkway, allowing guests to get a taste of what it might be like to be a monkey high up in the trees.
Visitors also have the option of taking part in ‘black adventures’ – harnessed tours that allow them to observe the animals and surroundings from a unique viewpoint. These include the Wild Apex Adventure, which combines hiking and climbing and encompasses ladders, suspended bridges and tricky rock faces. The Wild Cavern Adventure offers visitors the chance to explore the Cavern by climbing rock formations and scaling ladders before traversing a cable line and abseiling down the walls of the artificial cavern in darkness.
The Cavern: 3D printed caves The Cavern represents one of the most complicated design elements of the park. Based on the Mulu Caves in Sarawak, Malaysia – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – this 220m-long finale to the rainforest adventure was created using 3D scanning and digital modelling.
“To make sure that we captured every intricate detail, we 3D scanned the real caves, then we stitched them together digitally before passing the whole model to the contractors for construction,” says Yik.
“Each panel was faithfully reconstructed and prefabricated in an off-site factory in Johor, Malaysia before being brought on site and reassembled, sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. When you step into the Cavern, it’s hard not to feel a sense of wonder, because every stalactite and stalagmite is made with incredible accuracy. It’s quite breathtaking.
“One of my favourite parts of the Cavern is the oculus. There’s a certain time of the day where the light just streams through that small gap, and when you walk up the steps, it feels unreal and heavenly. It’s the hero shot for the entire cavern, and it’s something you don’t see very often in a city like Singapore.”
Mandai Wildlife Reserve: The team
Client: Mandai Park Development Ltd
Architect: CPG Consultants
Master planner/zoo specialist: CLR Design
Landscape architect: Grant Associates
C&S engineers: AECOM
M&E engineers: Squire Mech
Quantity surveyor: Arcadis Singapore
Adventure specialist: Stretchmarks Asia
Irrigations specialist: Water Equipment Technology
Lighting designer: Lighting Planners Associates
Signage designer: Acacia Design
Arborist & biodiversity specialist: Camphora
Main contractor: China Jingye Engineering Corporation
Design consultants: DP Architects & DP Green
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2025 issue 2
Editor's letter: Betting on horror
Year-round horror experiences are a fast-growing trend, but will the companies betting big see their investments pay off?
People: Thelma Golden
As the Studio Museum in Harlem prepares to reopen, its CEO explains why the institution is more important than ever
People: Linda Conlon
A driving force behind the creation of the International Centre for Life, CEO Linda Conlon has seen massive change over the past 25 years. So what’s next for the science centre?
People: Fiona Eastwood
With a passion for the industry, the new CEO of Merlin Entertainments says she is ready to lead the company to a new era of expansion and growth
Design & fabrication: Making a scene
As Adirondack Studios celebrates its 50th birthday, we speak to co-founders Michael Blau and Tom Lloyd, and production art director Lara Brunelle
Theme parks: Out of this world
The first major US theme park to open in almost 25 years, Universal Epic Universe is big news for the industry. We hear from the creative team that made it happen
Immersive experiences: One love
The creators of new Vegas immersive experience Hope Road have partnered with Bob Marley’s children to tell the story of his life and music
Zoos: Into the wild
Billed as Asia’s first adventure-based zoo park, Rainforest Wild Asia lets visitors experience animals in a whole new way. We find out more
Theme parks: Sleeping beauty
Fairytale magic meets traditional grand hotel at Efteling’s newest accommodation offering. Its designer shares the vision
Immersive attractions: Lost in music
As immersive music and hospitality company the Lost Estate announces its latest production, co-founder Eddy Hackett shares its global expansion plans
Immersive: Virginie Valastro
A dramatic ancient canyon made for an amazing starting place for the creation of a spectacular new scare attraction, says its creator
Museums: Roman Vinoly
The recently-opened National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, was one of architect’s Rafael Vinoly’s final projects. His son tells us what the project meant to his father, and how he intends to continue his legacy
Billed as Asia’s first adventure-based wildlife park,
Rainforest Wild Asia aims to immerse visitors into the
rainforest ecosystem, with invisible barriers, elevated
walkways, flexible habitats and chance encounters with animals
The design of the park and walkways maximises the chance of animal sightings / Mandai Wildlife Group
When the Mandai Wildlife Group began planning Rainforest Wild Asia in 2017, their vision was to create a park that made visitors feel more like they were trekking through a living rainforest than visiting a zoo.
To create this new addition to Mandai Wildlife Reserve in Singapore – which also includes Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Wonders and Bird Paradise – they teamed up with landscape architecture practice Grant Associates, and animal conservation and zoo design specialists CLR Design. Together they came up with a concept that would allow visitors to choose how they explored the park, with the options of rugged trails, raised wheelchair-accessible walkways and adrenaline-fuelled climbing adventures.
The 13-hectare park, which opened in March 2025, features open, naturalistic habitats where 36 species of animals – including sun bears, Malayan tigers and bearded pigs – roam freely, without visible barriers, and flexible habitats that see animals rotating through different enclosures at different times of the day.
It was important to work with nature in the design of the park, explains the Mandai Wildlife Group’s Michelle Yik, lead designer of Rainforest Wild Asia.
“In most other development projects, the architecture is the hero,” she says. “But in this case, we worked around getting the buildings to disappear seamlessly into the landscape, because the trees are the real heroes.”
The project team retained more than 300 existing mature trees and planted more another 7,000 new south east Asian trees and palms across the park.
Animal habitats have been designed to resemble natural ecosystems as closely as possible. The Karst enclosure, which features 20m-high jagged artificial limestone formations, houses the park’s Francois’ langurs, and is based on the cliffs of Vietnam and southern China where the langurs originate. Visitors can observe the monkeys from the Karst Lookout viewing platform, or from the more adventurous Karst Loop Trek. Those wanting a high adrenaline viewing experience can take part in the Wild Apex Adventure, a guided tour that involves scaling cliffs via tricky scrambling paths and a roped climbing route.
Flexible habitats One of the differentiating factors of the park is the introduction of flexible habitats, says Yik.
This allows species such as the babirusa, bearded pig and red dhole to be exhibited in the same habitats at different times of the day, creating opportunities for visitors to see the animals in a more dynamic setting and leading to unexpected encounters.
Yik explains how the chances of viewing animals are maximised by the design of the visitor routes through the park.
“Take the tiger habitat,” she says. “We have designed viewing spots that coincide with interesting or more attractive locations for the tiger to be at. Whether it’s from a bridge or from the elevated walkway, visitors have that opportunity to see the tiger close up.
“The whole idea of not really knowing where the tiger is adds to the level of excitement and idea of trying to spot animals in the rainforest.”
Another differentiating factor of the attraction is the ability to experience it in three different ways, continues Yik.
“You can experience it through an elevated walkway. It’s Universal Design friendly – whether you’re in a wheelchair or a parent with a stroller, it’s very easy and accessible.
“For someone who is a little bit more adventurous and wants to get off the beaten path, we have treks where you get to climb across logs, explore streams and come closer to the ficus trees.”
The paths are designed so that they intersect at different point, allowing parties to split up and then meet up again further along the trail. The park’s Canopy area – which houses Philippine spotted deer, Javan langur, Siamang and red-shanked douc langur – features the Langur Walking Nets – 180 square metres of walking nets suspended across the spiral elevated walkway, allowing guests to get a taste of what it might be like to be a monkey high up in the trees.
Visitors also have the option of taking part in ‘black adventures’ – harnessed tours that allow them to observe the animals and surroundings from a unique viewpoint. These include the Wild Apex Adventure, which combines hiking and climbing and encompasses ladders, suspended bridges and tricky rock faces. The Wild Cavern Adventure offers visitors the chance to explore the Cavern by climbing rock formations and scaling ladders before traversing a cable line and abseiling down the walls of the artificial cavern in darkness.
The Cavern: 3D printed caves The Cavern represents one of the most complicated design elements of the park. Based on the Mulu Caves in Sarawak, Malaysia – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – this 220m-long finale to the rainforest adventure was created using 3D scanning and digital modelling.
“To make sure that we captured every intricate detail, we 3D scanned the real caves, then we stitched them together digitally before passing the whole model to the contractors for construction,” says Yik.
“Each panel was faithfully reconstructed and prefabricated in an off-site factory in Johor, Malaysia before being brought on site and reassembled, sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. When you step into the Cavern, it’s hard not to feel a sense of wonder, because every stalactite and stalagmite is made with incredible accuracy. It’s quite breathtaking.
“One of my favourite parts of the Cavern is the oculus. There’s a certain time of the day where the light just streams through that small gap, and when you walk up the steps, it feels unreal and heavenly. It’s the hero shot for the entire cavern, and it’s something you don’t see very often in a city like Singapore.”
Mandai Wildlife Reserve: The team
Client: Mandai Park Development Ltd
Architect: CPG Consultants
Master planner/zoo specialist: CLR Design
Landscape architect: Grant Associates
C&S engineers: AECOM
M&E engineers: Squire Mech
Quantity surveyor: Arcadis Singapore
Adventure specialist: Stretchmarks Asia
Irrigations specialist: Water Equipment Technology
Lighting designer: Lighting Planners Associates
Signage designer: Acacia Design
Arborist & biodiversity specialist: Camphora
Main contractor: China Jingye Engineering Corporation
Design consultants: DP Architects & DP Green
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2025 issue 2
Editor's letter: Betting on horror
Year-round horror experiences are a fast-growing trend, but will the companies betting big see their investments pay off?
People: Thelma Golden
As the Studio Museum in Harlem prepares to reopen, its CEO explains why the institution is more important than ever
People: Linda Conlon
A driving force behind the creation of the International Centre for Life, CEO Linda Conlon has seen massive change over the past 25 years. So what’s next for the science centre?
People: Fiona Eastwood
With a passion for the industry, the new CEO of Merlin Entertainments says she is ready to lead the company to a new era of expansion and growth
Design & fabrication: Making a scene
As Adirondack Studios celebrates its 50th birthday, we speak to co-founders Michael Blau and Tom Lloyd, and production art director Lara Brunelle
Theme parks: Out of this world
The first major US theme park to open in almost 25 years, Universal Epic Universe is big news for the industry. We hear from the creative team that made it happen
Immersive experiences: One love
The creators of new Vegas immersive experience Hope Road have partnered with Bob Marley’s children to tell the story of his life and music
Zoos: Into the wild
Billed as Asia’s first adventure-based zoo park, Rainforest Wild Asia lets visitors experience animals in a whole new way. We find out more
Theme parks: Sleeping beauty
Fairytale magic meets traditional grand hotel at Efteling’s newest accommodation offering. Its designer shares the vision
Immersive attractions: Lost in music
As immersive music and hospitality company the Lost Estate announces its latest production, co-founder Eddy Hackett shares its global expansion plans
Immersive: Virginie Valastro
A dramatic ancient canyon made for an amazing starting place for the creation of a spectacular new scare attraction, says its creator
Museums: Roman Vinoly
The recently-opened National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, was one of architect’s Rafael Vinoly’s final projects. His son tells us what the project meant to his father, and how he intends to continue his legacy
A US$50 million (£44.2 million, €51.2 million) transformation of Chicago's historic McCormick
Mansion has created a new destination that combines live magic, immersive theatre, dining and
private membership under one roof.
The Montana Historical Society has officially celebrated the opening of its new Montana
Heritage
Center, a US$107 million (£79 million, €92 million) destination that combines immersive
storytelling with cutting-edge audiovisual technology to bring the sta
San Antonio Zoo has reported a US$283 million economic impact for 2025, following a decade-
long transformation programme that has seen almost US$200 million invested into the Texas
attraction.
Plans for the AU$180 million redevelopment of Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville, Australia, are
progressing, with the project set to transform the attraction into a global centre for reef
education and conservation.
Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Mubadala Capital has made a binding, fully financed
€1 billion
offer to acquire Pierre and Vacances SA, the European holiday resort operator behind the
continental European Center Parcs business.
Disney has reaffirmed its commitment to investing US$30 billion in its US parks and cruise
business by 2033, using new America250 celebrations to underline the role its attractions play
in supporting jobs, tourism and economic growth.
Expo 2030 Riyadh is being planned as a permanent visitor destination, with organisers
confirming the six-million-square-metre site will become a Global Village after the event closes.
The owner of one of Australia's best-known waterparks has acquired a major competitor,
creating a new attractions business spanning two of the country's largest visitor destinations.
The Toverland theme park in the Netherlands has announced a €98m expansion programme
that will add a resort, new attractions and staff facilities as it pursues plans to become a multi-
day destination.
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
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