Moontower Falls

Austin-Based Theme Park Concept Design | 2020 Disney Imaginations Competition

In collaboration with MFA architecture candidates at the University of Texas at Austin, Makayla Rutt and Ji Ye Song

What if instead of oil, Texas’s main commodity was wildflowers? Moontower Falls casts wildflowers as a usable energy source discovered by a fictional botanist around the turn of the 20th century. Around the same time in real history, the city of Austin erected “moonlight towers” to illuminate the streets. Based on early speculations that moontower light was bright enough to grow crops at night, we created a new origin story for these unique Austin landmarks in which they were used to grow wildflowers day and night for maximum energy yield. Moontower Falls is imagined on the grounds of ZilkerPark, a hub of activity and center for city-wide gatherings. The story of a botanist who sought an alternative energy source that would preserve her environment, offers hope to future generations that the possibility still exists. Moontower Falls is a place to come together, play, explore, and be immersed in a story that is at once fiction, history, and wish for the future.