Pandora - The World of Avatar is a breathtaking themed area at Disney’s Animal Kingdom that
was inspired by James Cameron’s award-winning film.
Construction first began on the area in early 2014, and took over 3 years to complete, opening
to the public in May of 2017.
Pandora features astounding scenery with immaculate attention to detail, immersing guests in the
Valley of Mo'ara with a combination of real Earth plant species and artificial alien flora.
Two attractions are located within The World of Avatar:
Na'vi River Journey, a dark boat ride which takes guests along the Kasvapan River, showcasing
the native fauna and flora of Pandora;
And Avatar Flight of Passage, a flying augmented reality simulator where guests fly through
Pandora while riding on the back a Banshee.
The showpiece of this spectacular land is located directly in the middle of the Valley
of Mo'ara, and that’s the floating mountains of Pandora.
The floating mountains were inspired by the Wuling mountain peaks in China, and they appear
to float in midair as guests weave through the walkways underneath.
They are truly a work of art, and a feat of modern engineering.
Building these massive mountains was no easy task, and that’s what I will be talking
about in today’s video.
The first trick that the Disney Imagineers used for the mountains is called forced perspective,
and you can find examples of this all over Walt Disney World as it’s something that
they use quite often.
Forced perspective manipulates human visual perception, and the Imagineers have used it
to make the mountains appear much larger than they actually are.
This includes the use of relative scale, vantage points, and textures to create the illusion
of larger scale.
For example, the smaller mountains which extend into the air above the main structure are
perceived as being farther away due to their size, which tricks our brains into thinking
that they are much larger.
The green foliage placed on top of the mountains may also be perceived as distant forested
areas with trees that are located so high up that they appear to be very tiny.
Now the floating mountains are in no way small, in fact they are 156 feet in height, which
is over 15 stories.
However, forced perspective allowed the designers to make the mountains as small as possible
while still maintaining the illusion that they are actually the size of real mountains.
Or at least a lot larger than 156 feet.
In addition to forced perspective, the designers also made extensive use of colour and texture
to make the mountains appear as though they are as heavy as real mountains.
They really do look like they’re made from actual rock and earth, when in reality they
are hollow with a steel superstructure on the inside and a thin concrete shell on the
outside.
To create the illusion that the mountains are floating in mid-air, the Imagineers hid
the steel support beams inside large vines which appear to be hanging down from the mountains.
Our brains are used to seeing vines hanging in a catenary shape just like rope or string,
so when we see the floating mountains our brains instinctively assume that the vines
are suspended, even if we know that the opposite is true, and the vines are actually holding
the mountains up from underneath.
To further the illusion, the steel support beams were given natural organic shapes, and
a large number a relatively thin beams were used to give a more realistic appearance.
Plenty of naturally hanging vines were added all over the structure as well to help camouflage
the false vines, and it can be pretty difficult to tell which ones are natural and which are
hiding steel support beams.
Despite all of the effort that went into creating the floating mountain illusion, there is one
major design aspect that somewhat detracts from the illusion.
That’s the fact that one of the mountains is sitting directly on the ground.
These mountains over here are clearly suspended in mid-air using some Disney magic, but this
one not so much.
It’s pretty obvious that this mountain is not floating, although the Imagineers did
do their best to make it seem like the mountain is balancing on top of a large rock rather
than being securely fastened to the ground.
Of course this must have been done for a reason, and there are two main reasons that I could
think of for why this mountain was built at ground-level.
The first was to provide a hidden access point to the inside of the mountain.
Access to the inside of the mountain is necessary for maintenance purposes since it contains
plumbing systems for the waterfalls located on the outside.
If this mountain was elevated off the ground like the others, then there would need to
be some kind of access staircase or elevator underneath which would detract from the natural
landscape that the designers were trying to achieve.
The second reason why I believe this mountain was constructed at ground-level was to provide
secure anchorage to the ground so that the structure can resist lateral loads from strong
winds and earthquakes.
It might have been possible to achieve sufficient lateral stability if all of the mountains
had been elevated, but it’s a lot easier to accomplish when you can simply anchor the
entire base of the structure directly to the foundation.
And since a hidden access point was needed anyway, it just makes sense to take advantage
of this from a structural standpoint as well.
Let’s move on now from how the Imagineers achieved the physical appearance of the floating
mountains, and talk about how the engineers designed the support structure hidden inside.
You probably noticed that I just said engineers instead of Imagineers, and that’s because
the structural design work was contracted out to an external engineering firm.
The Disney Imagineers don’t always design all aspects of Disney attractions in-house,
and they often work with a variety of specialized engineering and construction companies.
In this case, Disney teamed up with the structural engineers of Walter P. Moore in Orlando to
design the support structure for the floating mountains.
The entire structure sits on top of large concrete foundations that are reinforced with
steel rebar.
The foundations extend below the ground and are disguised with theming elements, so you
can’t actually see them when you are walking around Pandora.
The steel members of the internal superstructure are anchored to these foundations, transferring
all of the loads to the ground underneath.
The steel members can be divided into three main categories, as demonstrated by this simplified
2D cross-section.
As you can see, we have primary structural members, shown in dark gray, secondary structural
members, shown in white, and steel box beams, shown in brown.
The primary structural members consist mostly of steel I-beams and hollow structural sections,
also referred to as HSS.
These are the same kinds of structural members that you might see used for other large structures
like as skyscrapers, factories, or office buildings.
The primary members form the shape of each of the mountains, and they provide support
for the secondary structural members.
Although the primary structure looks like complete chaos with steel members going in
almost every direction, the members generally follow a grid pattern with vertical columns,
horizontal beams, and diagonal cross-bracing.
The secondary structural members protrude off of the primary structure, and their purpose
is to support the exterior façade.
They were also used to support workers during the construction of the façade, but I will
talk about this in more detail a little later.
The secondary members are a lot smaller than the primary members since they carry much
smaller loads, and they consist mostly of steel C-sections supported by diagonal steel
angles.
Circular tubes have also been used so that the secondary members could be installed in
any direction as required by the designers.
Lastly, we have the steel box beams which are hidden inside the vine-work as I discussed
earlier.
Their purpose is to transfer loads between the mountains, as well as to the concrete
foundations on the floating side of the structure.
They consist of square box sections that have been welded together to form curved segmented
beams.
The box beam design is actually comparable to the track of roller coasters built by Swiss
company B&M.
The various primary members, secondary members, and box beams that make up the superstructure
of the floating mountains are all connected together using various types of bolted connections.
The engineers had to get pretty creative to come up with techniques to connect so many
members together at difficult angles.
Almost every member and connection in the structure is unique and had to be custom-fabricated,
which is one of the reasons why construction took so long to complete.
The structure is also extremely intricate and is made up of hundreds, if not thousands,
of steel members that had to be installed individually like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Creating organic shapes from straight geometric members is not easy, and the resulting superstructure
that was needed to capture the natural shape of mountains is a complex a 3-dimesional web
of intertwined steel.
Before the exterior façade was put in place, the steel superstructure by itself looked
like an impressive work of modern art.
To create the natural-looking façade on the outside of the mountains, a steel mesh was
first installed around the entire structure.
The mesh consisted of hundreds of unique pre-fabricated panels that were hung off of the secondary
structural members and secured in place.
A type of spray concrete was then applied to form a thin rigid shell following the contours
of the mesh.
Spray concrete is useful because it allows the designers create any shape that they want,
and it does not require any formwork like regular concrete.
To make it easier for the construction crew and artists to work on the exterior of the
mountains, the secondary structural members were originally left much longer so that they
protruded through the façade.
This allowed the workers to install scaffolding all the way around the mountains at different
levels so that every part of the exterior surface could be accessed.
All of the secondary members had small round tubes welded to their ends, which were used
to install guard rails for the scaffolding.
Once the façade was complete, the workers simply cut off the ends of the steel members
that were protruding through the finished surface and patched all of the remaining holes.
This is a clever and effective construction method that Disney uses quite often for large
naturalistic installations.
It eliminates the need for an external scaffolding system by using the steel support structure
itself, which gives the workers full unobstructed access to the exterior surface.
The same method was used for Expedition Everest back in 2004, and it is being used again right
now for the construction of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
A similar concept was also used for the small floating mountains that extend off of the
main structure.
These smaller pieces were fully constructed on the ground, and steel I-beam were left
protruding through the finished façade.
The I-beams were used to hoist the mountains into place with a crane, and they were simply
cut off once the pieces were secured to main structure.
Now this just about concludes everything that I wanted to talk about regarding the design
and construction of the floating mountains, and I just want to wrap things up by commending
the artists for their incredible work on the façade of the structure.
Once all of the steel and concrete work was complete, it still took an entire team of
artists to bring the mountains to life, and I have absolutely no idea how they did it
so well.
The level of realism and the attention to detail in the paint, foliage, and vine work
are almost unbelievable, and its these artistic features that help to make the finished structure
so magical.
The floating mountains of Pandora at Disney’s Animal Kingdom are a perfect example of how
art and engineering can be combined to create a beautiful world-class attraction.
I really hope that you enjoyed this video, and that you were able to learn something
new about this one-of-a-kind structure at Walt Disney World.
This video was a lot of fun for me to make, and I plan to make more content like this
in the future.
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and feel free to leave suggestions for future videos in the comments below.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.