When the National Museum approached FARM to “create something delightful” for the Night Festival 2009, its response was to create something that would engage the public and at the same time respond to the beauty of the museum grounds. During early discussions with the client, the design team attended the Under The Banyan Tree series of movie screenings organised by the museum, and was fascinated by how the majestic banyan tree seemed to cast a spell over the crowd. They realised then that they had found their inspiration.

Said the design team, “When we think about the National Museum, the association with another “grand old dame” comes to mind. It is the huge old banyan tree that sits majestically on the museum’s front lawn, seemingly holding court in a place full of histories, stories and magic. We wanted to allude to all this richness and symbolism through a contemporary reinterpretation of the banyan tree.” The team hoped that The Tree would inspire people to “slow down, take a breather and simply bask and partake in this recreation of nature’s wonder”.

To derive the form of The Tree, the design team developed several 3D models to study the different possibilities and permutations with varying structural logics and variations in patterns. They wanted it to look different from every angle while maintaining a singular spatial influence on its surroundings. In the end, a series of geometrical cubes were used as the primary design language. Hence, The Tree was constructed from a series of rectangles and square frames of various sizes, rising from the ground and interlocking in a 3-dimensional space, forming a semblance of the original banyan tree.

The next crucial question in the design process was how The Tree would interact with the site and the city. Taking the cue from the hanging vines of the banyan tree, the team installed sound detectors that could capture various tones in the environment that would trigger a series of lights in The Tree. A digital model was developed to study the potential of the idea, convincing both the design team and the client that it was not only feasible but also captivating. With the addition of LED light tubes, The Tree glowed like a huge lantern at night. The Tree was also able to react to sound: a series of microphones hidden within the structure of the structure was programmed to pick up and react to sounds in the environment by pulsating with light. The louder the sounds, the brighter the Tree became. As the team put it, “It was something that we fell in love with at first sight, and so did the client.”

It was not easy to translate the concept into reality. To understand the structure better, the team broke The Tree down into various parts, referring to The Tree’s foundation as the Roots, the main support as the Trunk, the primary cantilevers as the Branches, and finally the top as the Crown. The team recalls the difficulty of balancing the design of each part of the structure: “The Trunk had to look slender and the Crown luscious. It was quite a task to balance each projection from the Trunk while wanting the Branches and Crown to look different at the same time. We did not have any advanced structural programmes at that time so a lot of the work was done by trial and error, with a huge dose of common sense and faith!”

As The Tree was a huge outdoor structure, the team also had to ensure that it could withstand changing environmental factors such as weather, wind load and public vandalism, among others. Different materials were tested before the team finally settled on one that was lightweight yet strong enough for the structure.

At the end of the process, the contractor created a full-scale mock-up of The Tree at an alternate location in order to confirm the configurations of the Branches. Once this was settled, the entire structure was dismantled and transported to the museum grounds, where it was erected in its final form.

Ultimately, the design team believes that “the Tree was beautiful because of its simplicity”. While it was a complex installation in terms of the structural and interactive components behind it, none of these complexities were obvious. The outcome was a delightful homage to a grand old tree, and as a contemporary light and sound installation located in the city, it was engaging and enjoyable for both adults and children.

Throughout the whole process, the design team notes that the National Museum was very supportive and receptive to new ideas and new ways of doing things. “Because we are neither sculptors nor specialists in landscape art, we were thankful that National Museum of Singapore gave us the opportunity and creative freedom to work on the project … Having such an open-minded and daring client was a huge blessing!”