CASE STUDY e Original Vision of EPCOT

Many people know Walt Disney for his empire of Disneyland, Disney World, and Disney cartoons. Beyond creang new industries in animaon and amusement parks in his lifeme, Disney also influenced American society in other ways. For example, during the 1950s, he explored the ideas of space exploraon and space travel in several Disneyland TV shows, which helped create strong public support for the burgeoning U.S. space program.

Disney also influenced how people think about sustainable cies. His last film presented a bold vision for a concept called the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”, otherwise known as EPCOT.

EPCOT was an idealized city, where people would live, work and play. Building on familiar ideas of the me, EPCOT evokes the European concept of Garden Cies and the popular World Fairs.

A grand challenge

The vision for EPOCT was first presented in October 1966 to the American public on naonal television as part of the weekly Disneyland series.

In his film, Disney’s vision is structured in three parts that correspond to the first three phases of the foresight process: Perspecve, Opportunity, and Soluon.

In the first secon, the narrator presents a brief history of Disney’s work, quong experts and establishing credibility with the audience—all of which offers perspecve to the viewers. A good vision embodies the beliefs and values of the me, and it was no different with EPCOT. For example, the city locaon was deliberately placed at the intersecon of two major highways, just as the American interstate system was flourishing and family road trips were becoming popular.

In the next secon, Disney outlines the opportunity for his big idea, showing why it is addresses the needs of workers, families, and businesses. EPCOT was to be a self-sustaining and self-governing city designed for public need, not entertainment. Disney hoped that EPCOT would have a big impact on urban planning and community development because the city would “become a pilot operaon for the teaching age—to go across the country and across the world.”

In the final secon, he explains how EPCOT could work as a soluon and helps people to imagine the new community by showing animated sketches, illustraons, and other rough prototypes. Disney posed his vision as a challenge to the general American public, saying: “I don’t believe there’s a grand challenge anywhere in the world that’s more important to people everywhere than finding soluons to the problems of our cies.”

View and download the View and download the free complete playbook www.lut.fi/innovaon and related materials from:free complete playbook foresight.stanford.edu/playbook and related materials from: www.innovaon.io/playbook CASE STUDY page 2

Was the vision DARPA Hard?

Walt Disney’s vision for EPCOT was bold and unbelievable to many. The language throughout the film is wonderfully scripted, reinforcing the four qualies of a radical vision.

1. Far-Reaching: EPCOT was a big idea that would take both me and complex integraon to build.

2. Technically challenging: EPCOT was an enrely new city with new infrastructure ideas, such a regulated climate system, in a locaon far away from the Disney enterprise—truly DARPA Hard. Source: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment 3. Muldisciplinary: While Disney was the spokesperson, he needed the parcipaon of mulple groups from government, industry, and the community to make the idea of EPCOT real.

1. Aconable: Disney appealed to other companies to help show how they could get involved immediately.

The vision of EPCOT today

Disney died soon aer his video aired, and the momentum for EPCOT stopped for a me. A visionary is oen closely linked to his/her vision. Although Disney’s brother and management team pursued parts of the idea, they built a different version under the same name—which included a theme park that opened in 1982 and a planned city called Celebraon that was developed in the mid-1990s.

Was EPCOT a failed vision? No, because another team pursued a different idea. Ulmately, many of the ideas behind the original EPCOT vision were gradually embraced by American society in the ensuing decades.