When Florida’s Walt Disney World opened in 1971, NBC’s David Brinkley called it “the most imaginative and effective piece of urban planning in America.” This in-depth program, taught by a 30+ year veteran of theme park design with Disney and Universal Creative, demonstrates how to import the practices from designing theme parks into the discipline of placemaking.

You will hone your architectural narrative sensibilities through concrete examples from theme park design, architecture, and real estate development, further strengthened through classroom discussion, practice pitch sessions, and in-depth exercises.

The program will consist of three modules, featuring a mix of lectures, interactive discussions, and exercises that enable you to immediately apply what you’ve learned, while learning from a global group of peers.

• The first session, “Telling”, focuses on how to distill a project’s emotional core into an easily communicated form, called a log line.
• The second session, “Selling”, centers on the mechanics of pitching your project, with a focus on stakeholder analysis and leading your pitch with a compelling vision, not facts.
• The third session, “Gelling”, brings it all together, sharing how to sustain the telling and selling of your project’s story from groundbreaking through significant milestones, including completion, lease-up, and more.

Participants are encouraged to select a project they are involved in to share as a reference point for the learning and group sharing in this program.

• Learn five fundamental principles of entertainment architecture.
• Practice reframing your project into an emotionally engaging story by adapting the practices of theme park design.
• Reframe your thinking from being investor-focused to user-focused because the user is the one who is funding your project.
• Understand the role of marketing data in analyzing what is essential to your potential user.
• Acquire the skills to tell distinct, memorable stories.
• Grow as a leader by becoming a better storyteller.

• This includes all real estate professionals and designers engaged in making places.
• This program is for anyone interested in placemaking as a storytelling discipline. 
• This program does not require previous design experience or ability.

We recommend anyone signing up for this program watch Ole Sceeren’s Ted Talk “Why great architecture should tell a story”:

You might suppose that entertainment architecture is the architecture of theaters and amusement parks, and structures exclusively designed by theme park architects. However, the term entertainment architecture can refer to any building or structure, regardless of its location and function, provided that it is designed to stimulate the imagination and encourage fantasy and whimsy. 

Some works of entertainment architecture are playful recreations of famous monuments. Some feature enormous statues and fountains. Entertainment architecture is often considered postmodern because it uses familiar shapes and details in unexpected ways.

Source: ThoughtCo.