Celebration,
Celebration, Florida

Disney hired Jaquelin Robertson and Cooper, Robertson in conjunction with Robert A.M. Stern Architects, as master planners for a new community on 5,000 acres adjacent to Walt Disney World. Since much of the site is wetlands and protected habitat, it has been treated as an archipelago of connected islands with a “sea of trees to the south. The plan is organized around the existing patterns of open fields, cypress heads, mature trees and natural drainage ways, all of which give a sense of age and permanence to new streets, buildings and open spaces.

Celebration draws on and celebrates the best aspects of traditional American town planning and architecture. What has worked well for centuries in places like Nantucket, Coral Gables, and East Hampton is here amended to meet contemporary needs. Cars park on streets and in the center of blocks; a network of roads and open space – parks, paths, water courses, lakes, canals and an encircling golf course --- connect the different areas of the community encouraging walking and biking. Houses have wide front porches that help to reestablish the street as the main public setting. Shared alleys encourage conversations. In the town center there are apartments over shops, a town hall, a church, a bank, a grocery store, restaurants and office buildings, a cinema and post office.

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