Contemporary Changes

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Wed 16, 2008 8:59 am

BTW there is already one kingdom tower in Riyadh.

Kingdom Tower is the center piece of Kingdom Centre (spelled to make acp happy.)

As long as we have rumors going, there is also one floating that says Kingdom Tower was it's "production name" and since there is already the one in Riyadh, it will open as "Bay Lake Tower."

It's already had it's named changed once the original plans called it Disney's Contemporary Suites. Original filing only has a single tower in the permit.

johno

mwehttam · Post by **mwehttam** » Jul Wed 16, 2008 9:13 am

Actually, it is not being called Kingdom tower anymore. It is actually being called Bay Lake Tower, or BLT (mmmmmmmmmm BLT) for short.

-Matt

Post by **acp** » Jul Wed 16, 2008 9:42 am

jcodirewolf wrote:Kingdom Centre (spelled to make acp happy.)

Woohoo! You've earned yourself a cookie.

mwehttam wrote:Actually, it is not being called Kingdom tower anymore. It is actually being called Bay Lake Tower, or BLT (mmmmmmmmmm BLT) for short.

That's not been confirmed yet. It's just a rumour from the Orlando Sentinel right now.

Andy.

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Wed 16, 2008 11:13 am

acp wrote: That's not been confirmed yet. It's just a rumour from the Orlando Sentinel right now.

hey they are the ones that broke the news about the "Florida Project"

they have a long history of being right

johno

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Jul Wed 16, 2008 10:45 pm

JWG wrote:
Captain Schnemo wrote:History alert!
I tried to have my house built this way, I can't understand why no one agreed.

Is anyone surprised that this didn't work? Build a huge steel and concrete structure on a swamp and expect that settling won't happen?

Cool concept though.

I always wondered about that myself. Like, not a single engineer thought 'hey wait, what if this sucker settles'? Really? It was a cool idea, though.

I wouldn't be surprised if there ended up being two towers, as we've speculated all along. What I still don't get is what the 2nd tower's view is going to be. Or, more specifically, why it would be worth paying for.

keneka · Post by **keneka** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 5:07 am

it's been a while since we visited wdw (2 years ago) but they were knocking down some of the small buildings/rooms buy the water?

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 7:45 am

The setting issue is just urban legend, as far as I can tell. Originally, they thought about using it to "update" the rooms, but that idea was dropped before construction started. As that video showed it was a "rapid" construction technique. It's a win because you can start the finish/detail work while the building is still coming together, LONG before you can do it in the traditional way.

If you watch anything about Cruise Ship construction, they are done the same way. The rooms are modules they "slip" into the ship. They never take them out. If the cruise line wants to update the ship they do it more traditionally, strip the rooms and move new stuff in.

The small buildings you saw being demoed where the Garden rooms, which are gone, and the Tower is sitting there now.

johno

disneydreamer58 · Post by **disneydreamer58** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 7:54 am

Captain Schnemo wrote:History alert!

What I am digging about this video is the room decor and the hairstyles and clothes!!! That is pretty retro, I love it! Thank for sharing the link.

JWG · Post by **JWG** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 10:23 am

jcodirewolf wrote:The setting issue is just urban legend, as far as I can tell. Originally, they thought about using it to "update" the rooms, but that idea was dropped before construction started. As that video showed it was a "rapid" construction technique. It's a win because you can start the finish/detail work while the building is still coming together, LONG before you can do it in the traditional way.

If you watch anything about Cruise Ship construction, they are done the same way. The rooms are modules they "slip" into the ship. They never take them out. If the cruise line wants to update the ship they do it more traditionally, strip the rooms and move new stuff in.

The small buildings you saw being demoed where the Garden rooms, which are gone, and the Tower is sitting there now.

johno

Settling or other, it is true that the modules cannot be removed, which somewhere in my many viewings of various things about Disney, was something that was supposed to be a reality early on. The ability to pull the modules out at anytime in the future was supposed to exist.

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 10:44 am

JWG wrote: Settling or other, it is true that the modules cannot be removed, which somewhere in my many viewings of various things about Disney, was something that was supposed to be a reality early on. The ability to pull the modules out at anytime in the future was supposed to exist.

This seems to be the answer to where the idea started...

from allears

A few weeks ago, in the March 10 column, I wrote about the construction methods used in the Polynesian and Contemporary Resorts. Long-time AllEars reader Bob, who has a formidable knowledge of WDW history, sent me this interesting quote he had found in an old in-house publication. The quote is regarding the Contemporary's UMC (Unitized Modular Construction) rooms. The publication, called "Visions," was given to guests upon check-in at the Contemporary.

"The initial concept was that when the time came, it would be relatively easy to remove a room, remodel it, and then replace it back into its "slot."

As Bob pointed out to me, the key words in this quote are "initial concept," meaning that it may have been part of a very early design idea, but it definitely was not carried out in the final design and construction of the resort.

spodie · Post by **spodie** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 11:55 am

Captain Schnemo wrote:History alert!

I am also digging the retro decor/outfits! I guess I must have missed an explanation or something, but I don't understand why they would build rooms and then "install" them. It seems rather pointless other than the fact that it probably seemed futuristic at the time...

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 2:26 pm

The point is as I said, you can build them and store them till they are ready to put them into the building. You don't have to wait for the floors to be ready, and the walls done, and the electricians and plumbers are done. So you have 2 crews one is on the site building the Superstructure, and another in a warehouse putting rooms together.

Think of it as construction version of multi-threading. It speeds up building a building by as much as 2 times. Depending on how much "finish work" is required. And for something like a hotel or apartment where you want 300 copies of the same room, it's really easy.

There are other versions of this same thing. I cited already cruise ship building. There are also buildings built into shipping connex (this is mostly done for disaster recovery.) But you get these shipping containers (like you see on truck and rail and ships.) Put a room in it outfitted the way you want. The shipping industry knows how to handle them, so you put a mailing label on it and it shows up. When you get it to the site, you just open it up and connect them together.

Check it out

johno

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 6:14 pm

That would make a lot more sense, really. I can definitely see some of the original designers being all "Hey it'd be cool if we could slide these rooms in and out!" and someone who knew how to build things said, "Well it would be cool, except for physics, etc". And then, years after the fact, it makes an interesting tidbit to pass along to guests, which is presumably why we've all heard of it.

spodie · Post by **spodie** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 6:17 pm

jcodirewolf wrote:The point is as I said, you can build them and store them till they are ready to put them into the building. You don't have to wait for the floors to be ready, and the walls done, and the electricians and plumbers are done. So you have 2 crews one is on the site building the Superstructure, and another in a warehouse putting rooms together.

Think of it as construction version of multi-threading. It speeds up building a building by as much as 2 times. Depending on how much "finish work" is required. And for something like a hotel or apartment where you want 300 copies of the same room, it's really easy.

There are other versions of this same thing. I cited already cruise ship building. There are also buildings built into shipping connex (this is mostly done for disaster recovery.) But you get these shipping containers (like you see on truck and rail and ships.) Put a room in it outfitted the way you want. The shipping industry knows how to handle them, so you put a mailing label on it and it shows up. When you get it to the site, you just open it up and connect them together.

Check it out

johno

Yes, but it seems that it would be far more costly to transport entire rooms rather than bringing the materials needed to build on the spot. I don't know, but it just seems more efficient the way we're used to (but maybe it's just because that's what we're used to

)

jcodirewolf · Post by **jcodirewolf** » Jul Thu 17, 2008 9:58 pm

spodie wrote: Yes, but it seems that it would be far more costly to transport entire rooms rather than bringing the materials needed to build on the spot. I don't know, but it just seems more efficient the way we're used to (but maybe it's just because that's what we're used to )

Well it depends on what you are trying to be efficient with time or transport.

I'm not 100% sure which you are talking about, the containerized rooms or the rooms in the CR. The Containerized rooms/buildings are often used for things like disaster relief. You can have a tarp or a studio apartment with running water and HVAC, which would you like?

In either case building buildings takes time, you can trade off the efficient in transport for speed. When you are doing the trick like the did for the CR, you try to rent a warehouse near-by. As I recall for WDW they where built property but off the building site.

johno