Disney Named Monstropolis' Main Street Dark Avenue, and Imagineers Say Piston Peak Buildings Were Shortened After a Balloon Test Came Back Too High

Monstropolis has a main street, and as of Friday it has a name. It is called Dark Avenue.

That is the headline out of a new episode of We Call It Imagineering, the Walt Disney Imagineering series. The episode went up on YouTube on Friday under the full title "Disney Parkitecture | A Deep Dive Into the Architecture at Disney Parks." It runs about 24 minutes, and a stretch of that stops in on four Walt Disney World projects: Monstropolis at Disney's Hollywood Studios, Piston Peak National Park at Magic Kingdom, Tropical Americas at Disney's Animal Kingdom, and Disney's Lakeshore Lodge. The rest is a wider architecture tour, with chapters on hub and spoke layout, Animation Courtyard, forced perspective, Pandora and go away colors.

The episode's key art. The Imagineer stands on a bare concrete pad in a safety vest and an augmented reality headset, with Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland composited in behind him. Image: Disney

Disney's closing line in its own write-up of the episode: "This episode pulls back the curtain on architecture across our parks. Technology evolves. The goal never does: believable worlds."

One caveat on sourcing before we go further. The episode's automatic captions would not load for us, so the details spoken inside the episode are as reported by WDW News Today, which watched it and wrote it up. The quoted lines attributed to the Disney Parks Blog are from Disney's own post.

What Dark Avenue is

The Monsters, Inc. factory, the building that will hold the land's suspended door coaster, sits at the end of Dark Avenue. Per WDW News Today's write-up of the episode, the street will carry several restaurants, shopping and more.

In the construction photo WDW News Today ran with its write-up, the factory sits at the far right, behind the facade of Harryhausen's, the restaurant taking over the Mama Melrose's building. Disney's framing for the Monstropolis segment is one line: "Get a look at exterior façade work at Monstropolis at Disney's Hollywood Studios."

The Monstropolis site: scaffolding at left, a plastic-wrapped facade with its rows of arched windows already picked out, and raw steel framing at right. An orange boom lift stands in the foreground with a worker in the basket, and lattice-boom cranes rise behind. Frame from Walt Disney Imagineering's video, via WDW News Today

Building a city for very heavy creatures

Structural load came up too. WDW News Today reports Imagineering talked to Pixar about the buildings, including how much weight they need to carry and what holds them up, because monsters are heavy creatures. Doors are being built at different sizes because monsters come in all shapes and sizes.

The windows are close to human windows, per the outlet, but their detailing is monstrous: teeth, horns and eyes.

The approach to the land as a whole is not replication. Imagineers are not rebuilding the animated buildings shot for shot. They aimed for what the outlet describes as a sensible logic for the city by combining parts of different eras, taking scenes from the films and setting them in the context of how a real city actually develops over time. Realistic mock-ups get built first, per the outlet, including pillars and arches, so the details do not get missed once the real structures go up. And architecture is only one layer: the land still needs graphics, music and smells.

Two Imagineers on scaffolding beside a partly finished Monstropolis wall. The man's hard hat reads SCOTT, and the woman's carries a Sorcerer Mickey decal. At right, exposed brick, ribbed grey scratch coat and a cast stepped moulding. Frame from Walt Disney Imagineering's video, via WDW News Today

Monstropolis opens in phases beginning in 2027. Disney has not announced a date.

The red balloon, explained

On August 12 we wrote about a small red balloon that turned up in the background of an official Disney staff photo, floating above the Piston Peak construction walls. All anyone could say at the time was that WDW News Today read it as a sightline test and that Disney had said nothing. That was the honest limit of it.

The episode answers most of it. Disney's own line for the segment: "Step behind the wall at Piston Peak National Park in Magic Kingdom for the project team's balloon testing." The official video description goes further, promising "a behind-the-scenes look at a recent balloon test for Piston Peak National Park and Villains Land."

Disney does not address that particular photo, but the episode confirms the practice. Balloons go up over Piston Peak as sightline tests, and per WDW News Today's account of the video, the results changed the buildings. The balloon was roughly the size of Lightning McQueen and was raised to the highest point of elevation, and Imagineers then fanned out across the park to check what showed from where. The first test happened over a year ago, and it came back with some elevations a little too high. Designs were revised, structures were shortened, and a second test followed. WDW News Today transcribes the Imagineers' verdict on the retest as "right on the money."

Two red test balloons up over the Piston Peak site at different heights, one high at left and one low against the treeline at right. Below them, concrete formwork, timber bracing and the blue lattice boom of a crane, with the bunting-draped Country Bear Musical Jamboree building at far left. Frame from Walt Disney Imagineering's video, via WDW News Today

Imagineering has promised before, and WDW News Today restates here, that no Cars architecture will be visible from Main Street, U.S.A., from Liberty Square, or from other areas of the park. A sight test was also run with Villains Land to see how the two lands pair together. Some of Villains Land's scales have to relate directly to Piston Peak's, which in turn relate to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Haunted Mansion and beyond.

Two years of samples, and no horse manure

The Tropical Americas segment is about finishes. Disney's line for it: "Walk the sample yard for Tropical Americas at Disney's Animal Kingdom to see how Imagineers test themed finishes."

Per WDW News Today, the team spent two years testing colors, textures and hardscape-to-wall combinations before anything was installed on site, and rejected and redid 24 eight-by-eight hardscape samples they did not like. A sample has to sit out in the elements for several months and still look naturally aged, meet code, and be smooth enough that guests can put a hand on it.

One of the reference points is Barichara in Colombia, where sustainable local architecture uses horse manure in its construction. The Imagineers made a point of saying they did not use any in their samples.

Sources

• Disney Parks Blog, "Go Behind the Scenes in Imagineering Video Series"
• Walt Disney Imagineering, "Disney Parkitecture | A Deep Dive Into the Architecture at Disney Parks"
• WDW News Today, "Dark Avenue Announced for Monstropolis, Imagineers Offer Glimpses Behind Construction Walls at Disney's Hollywood Studios"
• WDW News Today, "Cars Piston Peak National Park Structures Were Shortened by Imagineers to Keep Magic Kingdom Sightlines Clear"
• WDW News Today, "Imagineers Share Process of Creating Architecture for Tropical Americas at Disney's Animal Kingdom, Without Horse Manure"

Image credits: episode key art by Disney. Construction and balloon test frames are from Walt Disney Imagineering's video, via WDW News Today.