Hollywood Studios Park Wide Changes Incoming?

sedati

Well-Known Member
At EPCOT, the slightly less genius but still brilliant double fan of FW and the even better single path around a lake leading into cul-de-sac pavilions of WS.
Is this considered good theme park design? I mean, yes it gives us a pretty lake and and expansive view, but it is what I would call a "Committed Path." Same thing I dislike about Islands of Adventure. Your options are basically clockwise or conter-clockwise. Very rigid, very linear approach to theme park layout. Far worse with the introduction of Fast-Pass as one is often needing to criss-cross a park.
 

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
Is this considered good theme park design? I mean, yes it gives us a pretty lake and and expansive view, but it is what I would call a "Committed Path." Same thing I dislike about Islands of Adventure. Your options are basically clockwise or conter-clockwise. Very rigid, very linear approach to theme park layout. Far worse with the introduction of Fast-Pass as one is often needing to criss-cross a park.
WS? To me it counts as great design! WS is not meant to be criss-crossed, but savoured. The individual pavilion gains in meaning through other pavilions. All different, all the same, a sort of Small World effect, but on a WDW scale.

There is, well was, a large lakefront road that leads directly into each pavilion, which are dead ends leading the guest back to the road. Perfectly simple, and offering fantastic views. WS' immense beauty is also derived from this scheme.

There are doubledecker buses and two boat routes too to prevent the longest walks (one no longer possible because the drink stands need to be on the road to be in the drunks' direct point of view, the other barely running)
 

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
What's interesting to me is how these parks evolve with time. One Studios park is moving towards hub and spoke, the other (Paris) towards more of the Epcot model.

Finally Disneyland will more or less have completed a full second outer ring though eliminating an annoying Western flanking dead end. My inner OCD is satisfied. Praise be.
 

sedati

Well-Known Member
WS? To me it counts as great design! WS is not meant to be criss-crossed, but savoured. The individual pavilion gains in meaning through other pavilions. All different, all the same, a sort of Small World effect, but on a WDW scale.

There is, well was, a large lakefront road that leads directly into each pavilion, which are dead ends leading the guest back to the road. Perfectly simple, and offering fantastic views. WS' immense beauty is also derived from this scheme.

There are doubledecker buses and two boat routes too to prevent the longest walks (one no longer possible because the drink stands need to be on the road to be in the drunks' direct point of view, the other barely running)

I guess there are two basic theme park layout possibilities. One would be a "journey" where you are on a fixed route. The other would be more "adventure" where you have a myriad of paths and options.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
I guess there are two basic theme park layout possibilities. One would be a "journey" where you are on a fixed route. The other would be more "adventure" where you have a myriad of paths and options.

Or, you build around a lake because you discovered a sinkhole and you take advantage of that for a night show.

If Epcot was built on a "journey" then what does it say that you can either start with Mexico or Canada? Or, going in the back door, UK or France? Or, if the ferries were running, Italy or Morocco and then completely disrupting the journey with shortcuts? Also, why are the national pavilions built for a "journey" whereas the FW pavilions can be accessed at will by crisscrossing willy-nilly?

The "journey" story is fabricated etiology by someone romanticizing founders' wishes where everything in the old days was perfection and everything modern is a hellish landscape.
 

Robbiem

Well-Known Member
I don’t think World showcase is a good layout, you have no option but to follow a linear path from pavilion to pavilion with the only option being to skip it and carry onto the next one. If they had built the planned wedway things might have been different but as it stands.

For me the best castle park layout is Tokyo’s. Its the only one where the center streets on main st/world bazaar open into the lands giving you a shortcut from Adventureland to tomorrowland without having to track back to the hub.

The best non castle park layout is probably either Disneysea or Animal Kingdom which use a similar layout. One thing most non castle parks suffer from though is lack of cover when it rains. Having more ways to get around when its wet rather than having to shelter in a pavilion or giftshop would be a great idea
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
I don’t think World showcase is a good layout, you have no option but to follow a linear path from pavilion to pavilion with the only option being to skip it and carry onto the next one. If they had built the planned wedway things might have been different but as it stands.
The only WEDway for the park as built was in Futureworld.
 

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
I'm just happy to hear I'm not the only person who finds the DHS layout confusing. The layouts of the other parks make sense to me on an instinctive and intuitive level, but not DHS.
I've heard that before, you're not the only one. ;)

The planological ordering goes beyond walkways. Everything (well roughly) is build at the same angle. A building either stands at 90 or 45 degree angle. The visitor
does notice this, at a subconscious level. It creates harmony, elegance, calm. You can notice this effect with ToT. From Hollywood Boul, you see it at a perfect 90° angle. From Sunset, at 45°. From the RnRC, you see it exactly straight on at 0°.

At a deep level, the visitor understands that if moved next to each other, ToT and the Chinese would face each other at a perfect 0° angle. (Or 180°)

Being LA, DHS needs to have a grid pattern layout. A ragtag organic one wouldn't work, nor hub-and-spoke. The stroke of genius is overlapping two grid patterns, at perfect 45°. This creates warmth, diagonals, a human dimension to what would otherwise be the cold checkerboard block city build for carfor, not pedestrians, that is the real LA.
 

doctornick

Well-Known Member
Actually, what was done is the first step to making DHS a hub and spoke park with loops instead of dead-ends.

Can't wait. Really the big remaining thing would be to tear down Launch Bay/Animation building and put a path between the Animation Courtyard and the RNR area. That's also prime real estate to put in a new land and actually expand the park. Fixing the fact that Sunset Blvd is a horrible dead end would really improve the flow in the park.
 

Robbiem

Well-Known Member
The only WEDway for the park as built was in Futureworld.

Interesting i was sure i read the wedway was planned to run from commicores second floor around world showcase, when the budget was cut it was replaced with the buses which circled the lagoon. Do you know where the future world only wedway would have run, im intreged!
 

trainplane3

Well-Known Member
Interesting i was sure i read the wedway was planned to run from commicores second floor around world showcase, when the budget was cut it was replaced with the buses which circled the lagoon. Do you know where the future world only wedway would have run, im intreged!

You should watch from about 8:45, should answer all of your questions about the Epcot WEDway.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Interesting i was sure i read the wedway was planned to run from commicores second floor around world showcase, when the budget was cut it was replaced with the buses which circled the lagoon. Do you know where the future world only wedway would have run, im intreged!
The WEDWay around Showcase is from when that was a separate park, located next to the TTC.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom