A Colossal Visual Feast

Shoppers at Oceania Mall will be in for a treat this year

The world’s tallest cylindrical aquarium housing an elevator ride and walk-through tunnel debuted at the new Oceania Mall in Moscow, Russia. This 24m tall acrylic aquarium was designed and built by the International Concept Management (ICM), and is now a focal point for the state-of-the-art shopping centre in the heart of Russia.

The aquarium provides an engaging experience and serves as the centrepiece for shoppers at the mall. It not only is an architecturally stunning feast, but completely immerses guests into the underwater environment. The aquarium is 24m tall and 10m wide, holding 900,000 litre of saltwater. With an extensive background on complex engineering and sophisticated designs, ICM is able to make this walk-through tunnel a huge success.

Not only did the company design, build and commissioned the recordsetting aquarium, they also manage to install it entirely. 56 pieces of acrylic were shipped to Moscow and bonded together in specially built technical rooms, a temperature-sensitive process that was successfully carried out despite it being in the middle of winter in Moscow. The largest cranes in Russia were brought in to lift the heavy pieces from the technical rooms into their final location inside the shopping mall. The entire process from design through completion took approximately 15 months, quite an impressive time frame.

“Many aspects of this project were quite technical and challenging, but we had considerable experience to rely on,” said Andrius Vengalis, ICM’S on-site Project Manager. “Our team executed this project perfectly and we couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome of the Oceania Mall Aquarium.”