“Disney is a proponent of having a history for each of their venues,” says Robert Hilton, principal and senior designer at Daroff Design. “So we crafted a story of two brothers who built a local business, a foundry, in the 19th century. As the family business grew, the purpose of the building changed, and pottery and glass became the focus.”
That imagined backstory is woven into many elements of the design, with materials like artfully broken pottery, metalwork and glass mosaics throughout. The building itself, part of a repurposing of Pleasure Island and a parking lot into a new entertainment and shopping district, is done in the Florida Vernacular style of architecture, which was popular in the 1800s, and features wood frames, raised floors, metal roofs and big porches.