3. Theme Park Master Planning – Park Layout
by Peter Alexander Park Layout When people think of Master Planning, a lot of them think of how the park is arranged, which is what we call "park layout." There are as many ways to lay out a park as there are designers who do it, but a few have been used more often than not, so we'll touch on those first. The Disney approach, seen in the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, is what could be called the Icon Design Philosophy. The big Icon for Disney is the Castle at the end of Main Street, and that is also the…
2. Theme Park Master Planning – The Theme
The Theme A "Real Theme Park" needs a theme, which is a funny thing to say, but have you ever noticed that a lot of the places we call "theme parks" don't have much of a theme at all? That's because a lot of them are not really theme parks, they are just amusement or thrill ride parks with some pretty scenery stuck in between giant iron rides that look like Martian machines from The War of The Worlds. For this discussion, we are going to stick to "Real Theme Parks," a term which describes Disney, Universal, many of the…