It seems to be common practice now for museums to bring in installations and works commissioned by architects during the summer months as a way of drawing in the crowds of people whom have a little bit of extra time on their hands and are looking for ways to escape the blazing heat. MoMA PS1's 2017 Young Architects Program kicked off a few weeks ago with a pavilion designed by Jenny Sabin, the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation, designed this year by Jeanne Gang, opened over the weekend, and the prestigious Serpentine Gallery, started showing of their summer pavilion designed by Diébédo Francis Kéré in late June. 

In Singapore, the National Museum runs a similar summer series during June and July, but their's is catered towards children. Their Children's Season Singapore, is an annual festival now in it's 10th edition, that aims to make heritage content more accessible to younger generations and to encourage inter-generational bonding. In the Rotunda space, a large-scale installation is put in place and this year, it is French firm Atelier YokYok's Soft Dome. 

The aim of the design is to connect adults and children with the architecture that surrounds them. The Rotunda is a singular space that brings in brightness within a circular plan giving the visitor the feeling of being at the heart of the museum. The firm wanted to accentuate this feeling, giving the visitor a sense of the heritage of the museum by way of its architectural codes. With a vertical-domed ceiling and arcs surrounding, the architects turn the Rotunda on it's head with their Soft Dome installation. Creating an immersive and hemispheric design, the architects play with architectural codes of the place in a contemporary way through this reversal. For added benefit, the structure looks delightful to play on!

The material used for the installation is a 5mm Polypropylene knotless netting with a mesh size of 45 x 45mm. It took about 5 days to construct and used up about 200 m² of seamed netting.