Story Building: Secrets of Narrative Placemaking and Design from Entertainment Architecture

Join fellow planners and urban development leaders on Harvard’s historic campus to learn a three-step storytelling approach—Telling, Selling, and Gelling—that you can apply to plans, districts, and public-realm projects to elevate their appeal to communities, policymakers, and investors.

Every plan tells a story. That story is grounded in how people experience place: how a street, neighborhood, or district supports daily life, shapes identity, and communicates value. When you understand the story of a place—its past, present, and possible futures—you are better equipped to align stakeholders around a shared vision and move complex projects forward.

In this program, designer Steve Tatham, one of the world’s leading theme park planners, will show how immersive environments use story techniques to orchestrate movement, manage expectations, and create memorable experiences—and how you can adapt these same practices to master plans, corridors, waterfronts, and major development projects. Steve will draw lessons from his work on large-scale destinations, including what he learned designing America’s newest theme park, Universal’s Epic Universe, which opened in May 2025.

This two-day, campus-based program builds on the online program and is tailored to planning and development contexts through:

• The “learning laboratory” — where a global group of participants brings active planning or development projects into the classroom for group discussion and feedback, emerging with clearer narratives, sharper stakeholder messaging, and unexpected insights for implementation.
• In-depth, interactive exercises — hands-on activities that translate storytelling tools into planning practice, incorporating elements of gameplay and role-play to simulate real-world engagement with communities, decision-makers, and private partners—drawing on Steve’s renowned ability to make learning both rigorous and fun.