Disney’s Riviera Resort

A European Riviera-inspired Resort Hotel with a modern Disney twist

Disney Vacation Club Resort at Walt Disney World Resort

© Disney / © Disney Vacation Club

How do you create a sense of place without simply recreating a place?

 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Disney’s Riviera Resort brings the romance and elegance of the French and Italian Riviera to Walt Disney World, creating a resort experience inspired by the places, people, and artistic traditions that captivated Walt Disney himself.

The project presented an opportunity to tell a story at an architectural scale—using the resort’s design, interiors, artwork, dining experiences, and guest-facing details to create a cohesive sense of place.

Rather than simply recreating a European destination, the experience was designed to feel like Disney’s interpretation of the Riviera: sophisticated, imaginative, and filled with details that reward exploration.

DESIGN CHALLENGE

The Riviera presented a unique storytelling challenge.

The goal wasn’t to reproduce a specific European destination. It was to create an original Disney resort experience inspired by the French and Italian Riviera while making it feel authentic, cohesive, and distinctly Disney.

That meant translating a broad cultural and historical inspiration into a physical environment that guests could understand intuitively as they moved through the resort.

The story needed to exist across multiple scales:

ARCHITECTURE
How does the building establish the feeling of the Riviera?

INTERIORS
How do materials, colors, furnishings, and details deepen the story?

ARTWORK
How can Disney history and Riviera-inspired art become part of the environment?

DINING & AMENITIES
How can individual guest experiences feel like chapters of the larger story?

GUEST JOURNEY
How does the story unfold as guests move through the resort?

The challenge was to make all of these elements feel like pieces of the same world.

The story couldn’t live in one room or on one wall.

It had to live throughout the experience.

MY ROLE

DESIGNING FROM THE PLAN

Disney’s Riviera Resort was a new-build resort, which meant the storytelling could be developed alongside the architecture, interiors, and guest experience from the beginning.

I worked across CAD drawings, floor plans, elevations, and design documents, capturing the physical details of the project and making sure the story aligned with what was ultimately being designed and built. I tracked and documented the storytelling across spaces, ensuring that names, backstories, historical references, artwork, guest-facing copy, and other narrative elements remained consistent with the evolving design.

This required close collaboration with architects, designers, and other creative and technical teams to understand changes to the plans and ensure the story continued to match the physical environment. I used the drawings and design documentation as a source of truth for the narrative, connecting the story, architecture, interiors, artwork, and guest experience into one cohesive resort story.

The result was a documented story system that could move with the project from design development through construction, helping ensure that the details guests ultimately encountered were connected to the larger narrative.

AWARDS & ACCOLADES

  • American Resort Development Association ACE Project of Excellence Award (2021)

CREATING THE STORY & GUEST EXPERIENCE

I contributed to the storytelling and creative development of Disney’s Riviera Resort, working with creative and design teams to translate the resort’s narrative into guest-facing experiences.

My work focused on story development, narrative integration, environmental storytelling, and creative direction, helping establish the stories and details that give the resort its sense of place.

I worked across disciplines to consider how story could be communicated not only through words, but through architecture, artwork, interiors, dining environments, graphics, and the small details guests encounter throughout their stay.

The work required thinking about the resort as a complete narrative environment—where individual spaces contribute to a larger story while still feeling connected as one destination.

RESULT

Disney’s Riviera Resort became a cohesive, story-driven destination where architecture, interiors, art, dining, and guest experience work together to create a distinct sense of place.

Rather than relying on a single narrative moment, the resort tells its story through layers of detail—inviting guests to discover connections between Disney history, European-inspired design, and the imagined world of the Riviera.

The result is an environment that feels both immersive and lived-in: a place where the story is not simply presented to guests, but becomes part of their experience as they explore, dine, relax, and move through the resort.

For me, the project represents the power of environmental storytelling at architectural scale—using creative strategy and narrative thinking to help transform a collection of physical spaces into one cohesive guest experience.

The architecture establishes the place.
The details reveal the story.
The guest brings it to life.