How Walt Disney Imagineering Adapts To Building For Residential Communities

Marquet Hall, Artist concept only; not yet completed and subject to change. Not an actual depiction of the community or its environment. ©Disney

Storyliving by Disney

Walt Disney Imagineering is known for its impressive imagination and detailed storytelling for theme parks and cruise ships around the world. Now the team behind some of the most popular themed attractions around the world is also working on residential communities for Disney’s Storyliving by Disney brand. But for Imagineers who worked on Storyliving’s first community, Cotino, located in Rancho Mirage, California, and the upcoming Asteria in Chatham Park, North Carolina, building a residential community employs many of the same tactics as a theme park, but with a twist.

“What I think is so fascinating about Storyliving by Disney communities is that we are taking all of those details that are synonymous with Disney quality, going back to this idea of storytelling, and then how that influences placemaking, and then how that influences your emotions and what you do in this space,” Caroline Boone, Executive Creative Director at Walt Disney Imagineering, tells me. “We’re applying that to a residential community.”

For Boone and the rest of her team at Imagineering, Storyliving by Disney focuses on subtle details and elevated storytelling to a place where someone will live every day. “We’ve had a lot of debate and conversation and done a lot of research to understand what is the right level of Disney storytelling for an amenity where you are spending your everyday life,” explains Boone. “We still want that to be magical, but really calibrating based on guest and resident feedback to understand what’s the best way for that to manifest in this space.”

It is a fine line for how much Disney is too much Disney for a place where people are living versus vacationing. Most of the Disney details are located at the member clubs at Cotino and Asteria, dubbed the Artisan Club and the Second Star Club, respectively. One of the best examples of these subtle details is at Cotino’s Architects Fork, a restaurant and bar, that features construction documents of popular attractions like “it’s a small world” and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. On a larger scale, there’s even a life-sized recreation of the mid-century modern Parr House from the Pixar Animation Studios film The Incredibles 2 that Artisan Club Members can rent for a special event.

On the other side of the country at Asteria, Disney storytelling is going more whimsical. The members club is themed after Peter Pan, with details like a Tinkerbell-themed weathervane on top of the main gathering hub, Marquet Hall, and a storybook home dubbed Lost Key Cottage where members can rent the facility for celebrations and overnight stays.

The EPCOT Effect

Walt Disney’s original concept for EPCOT was that it was to be an actual community where people lived, worked, and played. That version of EPCOT never came to fruition as Walt died just eight weeks after the presentation of the “Florida Project.” But many of the same ideas, for the original EPCOT, a hyper-planned space where people can live and work, all designed by Imagineering, are brought to life with Storyliving by Disney communities.

One of the biggest ideas for Walt’s original EPCOT was a district that would recreate different scenes from around the world. While Cotino and Asteria aren’t inspired by far-off places, they are inspired by the world around them. “Much of our storytelling in these communities is rooted in the location and the history and the culture and the traditions of each of the locations,” says Boone. “We’re using that also for educational and programming opportunities to really use these locations as jumping off points to inspire people to learn more and get curious and interested about the places they live.”

Outside of architecture and landscaping, local culture and traditions are highlighted through programming at Cotino and Asteria. For example, at Cotino, Artisan Club members may have the chance to take art classes led by Disney animators or take an off-site excursion to the Palm Springs Air Museum to see and learn about Walt Disney’s personal plane. Over at Asteria, programming may include woodworking and quilting classes.

“One of my greatest learnings is that whether it is a park, whether it is a resort, whether it’s a ship, whether it’s a community, we’re really drawn to spaces that make us feel something,” Boon explains. “We deserve to feel excited to be in whatever space that is, whether we’re on vacation or whether we’re having our morning coffee.”