Club 32 Lounge

[spacemt354]

One more comment when looking back at the map. If you are wanting to have it spatially set up with the garden just past the train station, we could keep that and put the entry retail zone outside the train station but inside the park gates. Maybe that would cause some issues that I can't see right now, but it would be worth exploring. So basically same effect as what you wanted, just having it inside the park gates and the garden design refined into an entry sequence.

@D Hindley @mickeyfan5534 thoughts on this?

This is another good suggestions but since I just responded above I won't double reply and let some others chime in as well.

 

[mickeyfan5534]

@D Hindley @mickeyfan5534 thoughts on this?

This is another good suggestions but since I just responded above I won't double reply and let some others chime in as well.

I like the idea of putting Sydney Harbor in before the train station but after the gates. Slowly transport people into the park with a romanticized version of their world and then lead them into a different world after they pass through the train station.

 

[spacemt354]

I like the idea of putting Sydney Harbor in before the train station but after the gates. Slowly transport people into the park with a romanticized version of their world and then lead them into a different world after they pass through the train station.

I think @Imagineerland had mentioned this -- but while I like that idea...it's basically Shanghai Disneyland with Mickey Avenue followed by the Gardens of Imagination.

Hmm...I'm still thinking.

 

[D Hulk]

I'm in favor of the classic compress-release style used by a long corridor. And since this is a castle park, I think the classic layout is best - Entry gates, train station to pass under, town square, single roadway, hub.

Now, I think nearly all of that could be themed to Fantasia Gardens! It would take some thinking, but retail/dining/etc. could be placed subtly amidst the landscaping in like underground carved grottoes, or in Romanesque villas, or other architecture which carries on the look of Red's castle design. And generally, I fear doing both Sydney Waterfront and Fantasia Gardens within the park's gates is too confusing, and to me the hub ought to be a portion of the entry land. (Ignoring Shanghai, of course.)

That said, what I think works with Main Street (and DCA's Buena Vista street, which is honestly my favorite land in that park despite being a theme I'm familiar with as a Californian)...anyway, what works with Main Street is how it transitions guests from the "real" world to a fantasy world, with something which is halfway in between. It's familiar, yet nostalgic, and the Main Street challenge for newer parks - and with the passage of time - is that the original 1900 USA setting is losing its relevance.

Sydney Waterfront was an idea to do that sort of familiar nostalgia for Australian guests. We've none of us been super keen on it. Aren't there some Australian Imagineers lingering around here? What reads as nostalgic in your country? Could it even be Fantasia Gardens, assuming an Australian love for nature which slowly transitions into fantasy?

I'm rambling again.

 

[MonorailRed]

Funny, I was actually typing a response to this when you tagged me.




Ok I don't know how I feel about that change. At least from a technical planning and park logistics view. But there could be value here too. Not really all that sure yet.

So logistically, removing the entrance corridor just isn't done for a lot of reasons I think. Most practically, there are a lot of services that need to be held at the front of a park and that means buildings are needed. Cynically, the entrance is the place to maximize retail and other guest services based on observed guest traffic patterns. People buy on the way in and the way out, and frankly in a theme park, guests want to find the retail on the way in and the way out because they've been trained to find it then and there.

Sure this stuff could be placed outside of the park in an open retail zone, but then there's a bunch of new issues. Security and open access, contradictory themes and styles, control over the total experience, guest habits. I mean with this plan a guest would have to exit and then re-enter the park to buy merch and food, and then would be competing with non-guests, non-Disney stores, and a non-Disney theme, making an inferior experience. Just seems like a situation where if it could be in the park, it would be better for the guest experience to keep it in the park.

But besides the logistics, there are experiential and spatial values to a single entrance corridor and its basically why all the parks do it. This is more of a point to how the garden is planned out, not that it is a garden. Guest understanding of the park is easier with the single pathway leading to the center. Easier to get lost on the way out if you could have taken a bunch of branches on the way in, so having a single and very obviously emphasized path helps a lot. I mean I've heard stories of guests having trouble finding the entrance and exit of Animal Kingdom because of how the path is somewhat meandering with a single split.

Also, in a spatial compression and release aspect, the narrowness and single experience of a entry path is really effective at moving you into the park physically and thematically. The Disneyland style park entrance is a series of compressions and releases that essentially squeeze you into the park with really clever visual tricks. In a tight space, you want to move forward and then in the resulting open space, a view draws you into the next compression, over and over and over down the street. If you don't feel the need to move on, the front of a park could maybe end up with a crowding issue. And the tightness of the entrance quickly pushes your into the theme mindset because your are enveloped in a single, completely non-contradictory space, except for the park icon ahead, which is that visual that pulls you forward. I think there is value in being enclosed in a story to start of the park that would be lost in a garden that looks over to 2 or 3 other lands at once.

So those are my two points. But #1 does not mean that you cant have a garden, just that I think the outside retail (or at least only outside retail) is a bad idea and #2 does not mean that a garden couldn't fulfill those goals if designed right. It definitely could.

So this is my way too long way of saying that it probably could work but as a part of a larger entrance sequence. If you want Downtown Disney right next to the park, you could do exterior retail zone > park gate > interior retail zone > single entry corridor > Fantasia Gardens > Castle.

Which just so happens to be exactly what Shanghai Disneyland did. So yeah, that's my thought about that change.

Addressing the crowd control/gift shop issue... I think I have a solution - A "double decker" main street.

Floor A, where guests enter, would be a more "show" version of the utilidoors specifically for guests. It funnels them straight through to the hub. This includes shops and food in the first floor of the railroad building. Completely indoors as well.... Could be a bit of a change.

^ I'm thinking something like this, but much wider.... about 8x the size of the utilidoors that we know today.


In the train station, there would be easy access to Floor B. Floor B houses the Train Stop and the entrance to "Fantasia Gardens" - with an outdoor garden Oasis area leading to the castle in the same direction as Floor A - but with more winding paths.

Think of this kind of like the Progress City model in a sense.... Green, relaxing areas on top (Where the hotel is in the image), pathways for direct transport on the bottom (Where the monorail line is).

Guests would have access to getting off Floor B to the "Hub" area by exiting on two giant staircases made out of rocks... with the tunnel directly under it.

Here's a quick sketch of what I'm thinking.....

So... It'd be pretty much a Tokyo world Bazar/Oasis Hybrid. If that makes sense

Thoughts?

 

[spacemt354]

Here's another option off the top of my head.

- Keeps Sydney Waterfront and retail area where it was
- With @MonorailRed 's castle design, it feels more explorative if that makes sense.

So around the castle we have garden walkways and our "Fantasia Gardens" -- separate from the entrance and extending off of the north side of the hub roaming around the castle exterior

 

[spacemt354]

Addressing the crowd control/gift shop issue... I think I have a solution - A "double decker" main street.

Floor A, where guests enter, would be a more "show" version of the utilidoors specifically for guests. It funnels them straight through to the hub. This includes shops and food in the first floor of the railroad building. Completely indoors as well.... Could be a bit of a change.

^ I'm thinking something like this, but much wider.... about 8x the size of the utilidoors that we know today.


In the train station, there would be easy access to Floor B. Floor B houses the Train Stop and the entrance to "Fantasia Gardens" - with an outdoor garden Oasis area leading to the castle in the same direction as Floor A - but with more winding paths.

Think of this kind of like the Progress City model in a sense.... Green, relaxing areas on top (Where the hotel is in the image), pathways for direct transport on the bottom (Where the monorail line is).

Guests would have access to getting off Floor B to the "Hub" area by exiting on two giant staircases made out of rocks... with the tunnel directly under it.

Here's a quick sketch of what I'm thinking.....
View attachment 202436

So... It'd be pretty much a Tokyo world Bazar/Oasis Hybrid. If that makes sense

Thoughts?

 

[Imagineerland]

I'm in favor of the classic compress-release style used by a long corridor. And since this is a castle park, I think the classic layout is best - Entry gates, train station to pass under, town square, single roadway, hub.

Now, I think nearly all of that could be themed to Fantasia Gardens! It would take some thinking, but retail/dining/etc. could be placed subtly amidst the landscaping in like underground carved grottoes, or in Romanesque villas, or other architecture which carries on the look of Red's castle design. And generally, I fear doing both Sydney Waterfront and Fantasia Gardens within the park's gates is too confusing, and to me the hub ought to be a portion of the entry land. (Ignoring Shanghai, of course.)

That said, what I think works with Main Street (and DCA's Buena Vista street, which is honestly my favorite land in that park despite being a theme I'm familiar with as a Californian)...anyway, what works with Main Street is how it transitions guests from the "real" world to a fantasy world, with something which is halfway in between. It's familiar, yet nostalgic, and the Main Street challenge for newer parks - and with the passage of time - is that the original 1900 USA setting is losing its relevance.

Sydney Waterfront was an idea to do that sort of familiar nostalgia for Australian guests. We've none of us been super keen on it. Aren't there some Australian Imagineers lingering around here? What reads as nostalgic in your country? Could it even be Fantasia Gardens, assuming an Australian love for nature which slowly transitions into fantasy?

I'm rambling again.

I like a lot of this. You said what I was trying to say about the immersion of theme and transition perfectly.

Also liking the idea of Fantasia Gardens as the street, could provide some interesting architecture opportunities. And starts to remind me of Port of Entry at Islands of Adventure, which is one of my favorite entry corridors of the major parks. The entry streets doesn't have to be a completely straight curb lined road with flat facades.

The big question there really is the concept of going for something nostalgic to Sydney vs something else.

Interesting directions we could go here.

 

[spacemt354]

I'm in favor of the classic compress-release style used by a long corridor. And since this is a castle park, I think the classic layout is best - Entry gates, train station to pass under, town square, single roadway, hub.

Now, I think nearly all of that could be themed to Fantasia Gardens! It would take some thinking, but retail/dining/etc. could be placed subtly amidst the landscaping in like underground carved grottoes, or in Romanesque villas, or other architecture which carries on the look of Red's castle design. And generally, I fear doing both Sydney Waterfront and Fantasia Gardens within the park's gates is too confusing, and to me the hub ought to be a portion of the entry land. (Ignoring Shanghai, of course.)

That said, what I think works with Main Street (and DCA's Buena Vista street, which is honestly my favorite land in that park despite being a theme I'm familiar with as a Californian)...anyway, what works with Main Street is how it transitions guests from the "real" world to a fantasy world, with something which is halfway in between. It's familiar, yet nostalgic, and the Main Street challenge for newer parks - and with the passage of time - is that the original 1900 USA setting is losing its relevance.

Sydney Waterfront was an idea to do that sort of familiar nostalgia for Australian guests. We've none of us been super keen on it. Aren't there some Australian Imagineers lingering around here? What reads as nostalgic in your country? Could it even be Fantasia Gardens, assuming an Australian love for nature which slowly transitions into fantasy?

I'm rambling again.

@LSCreative is our resident Australian imagineer -- maybe he could chime in with some thoughts.

That is my fear as well -- in that both the waterfront and Fantasia Gardens being together is too much. It will definitely take some creativity and the more ideas the better because we'll eventually come to on that we'll just be like...boom that's it!

 

[MonorailRed]

I'm in favor of the classic compress-release style used by a long corridor. And since this is a castle park, I think the classic layout is best - Entry gates, train station to pass under, town square, single roadway, hub.

Now, I think nearly all of that could be themed to Fantasia Gardens! It would take some thinking, but retail/dining/etc. could be placed subtly amidst the landscaping in like underground carved grottoes, or in Romanesque villas, or other architecture which carries on the look of Red's castle design. And generally, I fear doing both Sydney Waterfront and Fantasia Gardens within the park's gates is too confusing, and to me the hub ought to be a portion of the entry land. (Ignoring Shanghai, of course.)

That said, what I think works with Main Street (and DCA's Buena Vista street, which is honestly my favorite land in that park despite being a theme I'm familiar with as a Californian)...anyway, what works with Main Street is how it transitions guests from the "real" world to a fantasy world, with something which is halfway in between. It's familiar, yet nostalgic, and the Main Street challenge for newer parks - and with the passage of time - is that the original 1900 USA setting is losing its relevance.

Sydney Waterfront was an idea to do that sort of familiar nostalgia for Australian guests. We've none of us been super keen on it. Aren't there some Australian Imagineers lingering around here? What reads as nostalgic in your country? Could it even be Fantasia Gardens, assuming an Australian love for nature which slowly transitions into fantasy?

I'm rambling again.

I have some friends from Australia.... I'll see if I can get some of their preferences for what they'd like to see.

They already gave some thoughts about the project.... I'll post them in a second.

 

[Imagineerland]

I think we definitely should look at how Shanghai works because we are basically going for the same sequence, and we likely just recreated some of the internal discussions about the possibilities of that entry land.

 

[MonorailRed]

Thoughts from people who live in the area we're working with.....

From New Zealand

"When Ive been to Australia there definitely were tourists from all over the world. Although new zealand is so close to aussie that i would say we go there quite often...As far as Disney IP or attractions, i really cant think of any. But Australia has amazing wildlife so maybe attractions in AK that could be tailored to aussie demographic might fit the bill"

From Australia

"Personally though, as a tourist I would want it to be similar to the existing disneyland/worlds and then be altering food to align with a more Australian culture..."

 

[D Hulk]

So here is the High Line park in New York:

It's basically a green roof on an old elevated train line.

This is where my mind traveled while reading @MonorailRed's double-level scheme. I can see some of what she's going for - Keep the tranquil garden areas, but as a separate experience from the shopping corridor. I'm afraid of making confusing layers, and something either underground (Red's tunnels) or under an elevated track (High Line) is maybe too much compression...

BUT...as green roofs guests can explore on top of the corridor's shops! Think of it like a variation on the arcades in Paris which line either side of their Main Street's corridor. Plus we'd get some pretty choice viewing spots up there for parades and fireworks!

Or maybe it ruins all the forced perspective!

 

[spacemt354]

I'm in favor of the classic compress-release style used by a long corridor. And since this is a castle park, I think the classic layout is best - Entry gates, train station to pass under, town square, single roadway, hub.

Now, I think nearly all of that could be themed to Fantasia Gardens! It would take some thinking, but retail/dining/etc. could be placed subtly amidst the landscaping in like underground carved grottoes, or in Romanesque villas, or other architecture which carries on the look of Red's castle design. And generally, I fear doing both Sydney Waterfront and Fantasia Gardens within the park's gates is too confusing, and to me the hub ought to be a portion of the entry land. (Ignoring Shanghai, of course.)

That said, what I think works with Main Street (and DCA's Buena Vista street, which is honestly my favorite land in that park despite being a theme I'm familiar with as a Californian)...anyway, what works with Main Street is how it transitions guests from the "real" world to a fantasy world, with something which is halfway in between. It's familiar, yet nostalgic, and the Main Street challenge for newer parks - and with the passage of time - is that the original 1900 USA setting is losing its relevance.

Sydney Waterfront was an idea to do that sort of familiar nostalgia for Australian guests. We've none of us been super keen on it. Aren't there some Australian Imagineers lingering around here? What reads as nostalgic in your country? Could it even be Fantasia Gardens, assuming an Australian love for nature which slowly transitions into fantasy?

I'm rambling again.

I like a lot of this. You said what I was trying to say about the immersion of theme and transition perfectly.

Also liking the idea of Fantasia Gardens as the street, could provide some interesting architecture opportunities. And starts to remind me of Port of Entry at Islands of Adventure, which is one of my favorite entry corridors of the major parks. The entry streets doesn't have to be a completely straight curb lined road with flat facades.

The big question there really is the concept of going for something nostalgic to Sydney vs something else.

Interesting directions we could go here.

To go along with the tradition Main Street concept -- but themed around Fantasia -- just a possible layout

These are easy to move around but I just like having a visual to explain ideas. Added some green areas where in front of a few shops in case we designed a Grotto or something like that.

 

[mickeyfan5534]

I know that's not final but could you slide in a Mickey M&G facility in there somewhere?

 

[spacemt354]

So here is the High Line park in New York:

View attachment 202437

It's basically a green roof on an old elevated train line.

This is where my mind traveled while reading @MonorailRed's double-level scheme. I can see some of what she's going for - Keep the tranquil garden areas, but as a separate experience from the shopping corridor. I'm afraid of making confusing layers, and something either underground (Red's tunnels) or under an elevated track (High Line) is maybe too much compression...

BUT...as green roofs guests can explore on top of the corridor's shops! Think of it like a variation on the arcades in Paris which line either side of their Main Street's corridor. Plus we'd get some pretty choice viewing spots up there for parades and fireworks!

Or maybe it ruins all the forced perspective!

One part of me is saying this sounds amazing...the other part of me is still trying to wrap my head around the feasibility.

At the entrance to the park...you'd have the option of going up or straight?

It's basically reminding me of the George Washington Bridge...taking the below or above routes on the double decker bridge

 

[spacemt354]

In all honesty --- the more I think of this the more we actually are just doing the entrance to Shanghai Disneyland which while it's a nice transition, I'd rather not just do that all over again. Since the goal of this project was to be different....maybe we direct our course that way completely.

The double deck idea sounds very intriguing (and it's not like Disney hasn't done it before...(utilidors)...this would just be on a grander scale.

But if we do go that route I can see several more things we'd need to address -- sightline issues from the top of the buildings, the downstairs facilities, and how guests can seamlessly pick on area or the other from the main entrance without creating a bottleneck

 

[spacemt354]

@D Hindley @MonorailRed -- when I went to Las Vegas last summer...this was one of my favorite areas. In the Venitian they had indoor A/C themed areas that made you feel like you were outside

Maybe this would be something to think about for the lower level?

 

[MonorailRed]

@D Hindley @MonorailRed -- when I went to Las Vegas last summer...this was one of my favorite areas. In the Venitian they had indoor A/C themed areas that made you feel like you were outside

Maybe this would be something to think about for the lower level?

Love this idea!!

 

[spacemt354]

Love this idea!!

I mean naturally it would be themed differently, but when you walk through it, the ceiling and lighting truly makes it feel like you're outside, so that would eliminate the claustrophobic inclinations of being in the lower level with a roof over your head.