Seuss Landing
Welding fantastical worlds
Project Facts
| Location | Orlando, Florida |
| Owner | Universal Studios |
Overview
As any reader of Dr. Seuss can attest, the whimsical landscapes depicted on the pages bear little resemblance to the natural world. In their pursuit to recreate this fantastical realm, Universal Studios assembled imaginative and resourceful teams of artists and engineers. Together, they crafted an enchanting Seuss Landing theme park addition designed to ignite the imaginations of its visitors.
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About the Project
The fantastic structures of Seuss Landing, one of the six Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios in Orlando, are based on the fanciful illustrations in the much-loved Dr. Suess books. As structural engineer, Walter P Moore was challenged to create curving and leaning structures with few straight elements, abstract shapes, and generally slender cross-sections—all of which must survive hurricane winds.
Two prominent rides required particularly complex structural engineering. Guests enter the Cat-in-the-Hat ride beneath a 48-foot tall hat supported on one side by a building and on the other side by the index finger of the cat’s right hand. Structural steel members were manipulated to create the wrist, index finger, and hat brim to support a braced tower hidden inside the hat. The High in the Sky Seuss Train Ride is an elevated monorail ride meandering through Seuss Landing. The ride track is supported by Seussian arches on Sneetch Beach and by segmented, curved columns between the buildings. In addition to hurricane winds, the curvy structure was designed to withstand fatigue loading under two million cycles.
