A new aerial photo from friend of the site Bioreconstruct is loaded with details and things to dissect. With the entirety of DinoLand USA now closed, crews are working quickly to create a Tropical Americas-themed land. We’ve covered work taking place inside the land, but now we’re taking a look at a laydown yard just to the north of Expedition Everest. In this article, we’re going to take a look at the texture testing and what appears to be early construction of the Indiana Jones attraction temple facade.
Tropical Americas Texture Tests & Temple Construction
In the photo above, there is a lot going on. We’ll start at the top of the photo and work our way around. This is the biggest question mark of the construction site (and, frankly, a bit of speculation). What this looks like is early work on what could be the Mayan temple that will act as the entrance to the Indiana Jones attraction.
Here’s a look at concept art for the attraction entrance. This concept art was found on construction walls near the former Restaurantosaurus quick-service area before the entire land closed earlier this month. As we can see, the Dino Institute will be transformed into an ancient Mayan temple.
If we squint at the photos below, we can see what appears to be sections of the temple formed out of rebar (or some similar material) below. It is common to see these “chips” when talking about Disney’s approach to rockwork. In fact, we saw much of the floating mountains staged not too far from the site below when Pandora – The World of Avatar was being built a decade ago.
To me, it looks like the top of the temple is surrounded by scaffolding on the left, with other parts of the temple currently receiving scaffolding. If I’m right that this is the temple, we’ll likely see these moved into place later this year after demolition and preparation can be completed at the former DINOSAUR attraction.
Moving along, we can see more traditional texture tests taking place nearby. These square facades represent various textures from around the land. Disney often tests paint and materials in these “small” sections before committing them to structures in the land. In fact, Disney will oftentimes create these small tests and leave them out for a full year to allow for “seasons” and various weather conditions to get a realistic idea of how the textures will fare once installed in the land.
These exact test swatches won’t be installed in the land, but the techniques, materials, and paint will be used in the land if the testing goes well. In the photo below, we can see tests for walls, the entrance archway, the rockwork that will hide the Encanto building, roofing, and much more. This is a really great inside look at what the land will “feel” like in terms of visual storytelling through textures and colors.
There is a rather interesting test taking place nearby as well. As seen in the photo below, we can see a portion of a tree and lush foliage. In fact, this reminds us of concept art released by Disney for the Encanto attraction.
Disney has released the following concept art for the Encanto attraction, which shows the marquee scene from the ride. We expect that this scene will be a massive, multi-story scene near the end of the ride, where we will circle through a lush forest scene representing Antonio’s room from the Encanto film.
Finally, there is a small concrete testing area. It’s possible that Disney is either in the early stages of creating more test swatches or that this is an area for workers to play around with different concrete techniques to create different looks before paint is applied.
All of this is really exciting to see, especially when paired with earlier aerial photos of the construction site that show a pretty quick pace of work as crews target a 2027 opening year for the entire Tropical Americas land.
For everything you need to know about the Tropical Americas retheme project for DinoLand USA, check out our article below!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!