Under lake aquarium built in Shanghai

Kay Elliott Architects were given the job of project design, layout and fit out of a brand new aquarium. The 6,000m2 aquarium was constructed under a lake in the middle of the city (open space is a premium in Shanghai), with 800m2 entrance and 3,000m2 exit buildings located at the lakes edge.

The proposal is to ‘fly’ the visitors to different areas of the world to see the aquarium exhibits in their natural habitat.

The entrance building was designed as an airport terminal, complete with huge departure lounge with changing departure board and flight announcements. The visitors, in carefully designated plane loads, enter a jumbo jet fuselage, (built in the UK specifically for this project), complete with seating, to get a ‘real flight’, including in flight movie giving information on their trip. After a short flight, they disembark in the high Andes, and follow the stream / river down through the Amazon rain forest; entering the sea, through coral reefs, shipwreck and emerging into a vast deep tropical ocean teeming with sharks and other sea creatures. Moving on through Antarctica to see some penguins the visitors board a ship to take them back home to Shanghai.

Kay Elliott Architects supervised the 12 month construction work on site.

The completed scheme is now attracting more than 2 million visitors a year.