BODLAND
A group project designed by: Laura Camp, Caitlin Martins and Wentao Huang
THE STORY:
Leif Erikson and his crew of sailors traveled all around the world looking for land to settle. Along the way, they found a civilization of seaports in Japan, where they joined in, establishing their own culture at Tokyo DisneySea where they raid and trade with the surrounding villages. Celebrating their new settlement, the Vikings have a permanent festival – thus the name Bodland – Festival Land.
WELCOME TO BODLAND
An intro video of Bodland.
The assignment of this group project was to extend an existing theme park or rebuild part of them. There are three members in the group, Laura camp, Caitlin Martins and me. After the discussion, we decided to develop a whole new storyline of Vikings and attach it to the Tokyo DisneySea.
THE SITE
During the research, we studied the life style of the Vikings, the gods they worshiped and the stories in Viking culture; then we tried to translate all the contents into the attractions in the park. After comprehensive Consideration, we built up the list of the attractions.
In the design process, we split the attraction design work evenly; then we assign the presentation work to specific one depends on his skill set and personality. I was assigned to design the boat ride that tells the story of "accosting the bifrost to Valhalla", the mobile food cart, the rune carving store and the Viking stone carve bridge. For the presentation part, I’m responsible for the master plan, the landscape design, final image and video renderings.
In order to unify the aesthetic style of all attractions, I started with designing a typical Viking long house and used it as a sample. In the mean time, Laura built up the story chart as the guild of the attraction design, Caitlin wrote the stories for each attractions.
THE PROCESS
Considered all the storytelling, the attractions, the functional buildings and the sight, I sketched initial master plan (the figure below). After many times of modification, it become the one shows in final rendering.
THE MASTER PLAN
The west area of the park appears as mountains with the boat ride hidden inside, a huge skeleton dragon that I sculpted in Zbrush rest on the mountain. On the North-west, the high ground of the park, all the attractions are telling the story of Viking gods. Down to the South-west, an underground dome theater tells the story of Ragnarok, the doom of the gods.
The center area was a large open area in order to meet the need of gathering and distributing people. Mobile merchandize carts are spread out here. Beside the water, the Viking long houses, boats, fleets and wood creeks create the image of a busy Viking village. The north defense and two bridges became the transition between the Viking world and other places.
EXPLORE THE BODLAND
A fly through from the north gate.
A fly through from the stone carve bridge on the south.