Disney World’s Convention and Exhibition Center represents a significant and independent addition to an existing complex of hotel and meeting facilities. The design must resolve its own, quite complex, program at the same time reconfiguring a composition of earlier buildings and public spaces and giving them a renewed vitality. The response was the design of a 2.5 acre entry plaza linking the old and new.
The entry plaza, with its elaborate paving patterns, carefully orchestrated landscaping and imposing, curved entry canopy, becomes the unifying element in the entire ‘urban’ composition, a truly public space on a grand scale which brings the disparate architectural pieces of the Center into a fully realized formal relationship.
The new addition contains a 45,000 square foot main ballroom that holds 3,300 people and can be divided into four multipurpose spaces: a 7,000 square foot ballroom, three prefunction galleries, five meeting rooms and a full-service kitchen with loading facilities.
Reinforced by a strong color palette, the Convention Center’s horizontal silhouette contrasts with the vertical, gridded facade of the Hotel. Four major forms create the collage-assemblage: the curvy, striped primary volume of the main ballroom and prefunction gallery; the entry canopy; and the two rotundas. One rotunda connects to the Hotel with stairs, escalators and a glass-block bridge; the other is accented by a square-punched window, an iconic form on the more visible west corner.
Download project pdf for more information
The new addition contains a 45,000 square foot main ballroom that holds 3,300 people and can be divided into four multipurpose spaces: a 7,000 square foot ballroom, three prefunction galleries, five meeting rooms and a full-service kitchen with loading facilities.
Reinforced by a strong color palette, the Convention Center’s horizontal silhouette contrasts with the vertical, gridded facade of the Hotel. Four major forms create the collage-assemblage: the curvy, striped primary volume of the main ballroom and prefunction gallery; the entry canopy; and the two rotundas. One rotunda connects to the Hotel with stairs, escalators and a glass-block bridge; the other is accented by a square-punched window, an iconic form on the more visible west corner.
Download project pdf for more information