Review: VISION House at Epcot’s Innoventions East

By Dave Shute

INNOVENTIONS AT EPCOT

Innoventions East and Innoventions West are areas of Disney World’s Epcot where “you are invited to imagine, invent, inquire and inspire as you explore amazing innovations that are making our lives better.” (Slow-loading source.)

Each of the two Innoventions pavilions holds a changing roster of 5-8 experiences, each with an external sponsor—ranging from Coca-Cola to Cornell University.

Innoventions is the perfect example of the Epcot itinerary quandary.

These are low capacity experiences of varying, but usually low, interest to typical theme-park visitors—and especially of low interest to most kids. (The Sum of All Thrills is a bit of an exception.)

So skip Innoventions, right? After all, it’s ranked as “Most Can Skip” here, and as “Avoid” for little kids, and “Skippable for everybody else, here.

Well, maybe.

The issue is that Epcot is willing to make you think, if you wish to, and you just never know when your kids (or you!) will have their imagination or intellect sparked.

REVIEW: VISION HOUSE AT INNOVENTIONS EAST

VISION House at Innoventions East is a display and tour of what I’ll call a “state of the art home,” presented by Green Builder Media, LLC, with multiple additional sponsors ranging from Bosch to Schlage.

The basic concept of VISION House is that a cast member takes you on a tour through the rooms and spaces of a state-of-the-art home, explaining the features and benefits of the various choices made in the house and their associated systems.

I have just the highest regard for the cast member who took our group on its tour.

He had just the right combination of intensity, friendliness, and —the greatest challenge— wakefulness.

VISION House opened in April 2012, and is meant to “highlight the major themes of whole-home automation, energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor environment quality, security, multi-generational design, and durability.”

And hell, if that’s not enough fun, “visitors will learn that each house is a set of interactive systems, and that proper management of those systems will maximize comfort and minimize operational costs.”

Or they will run screaming away.

But there’s the rub.  What most people do in life is a combination of predilection and serendipity.  What they might enjoy crosses paths with what they discover is possible…and then, sometimes, the sparks fly.

What’s scarce here is the serendipity–the chance discovery of what’s possible.

For example, I’ve spent my career working in a role (advisor on strategy) that I didn’t even know existed until I was in my mid-twenties. And I learned about it through serendipity…

And if, when younger, I’d learned more about architecture, I may have ended becoming an architect instead–as anyone who looks at the Disney World hotel reviews on this site—and their floor plans!—could have guessed.

So who knows what might happen to your kids if they go with you through VISION House?  Perhaps they’ll become systems engineers, or architects, or LEED designers…who knows?

Or maybe they will run screaming away.

But here’s what I’d do—if, after reading this review, you think there’s even a chance that one of your kids just might be entranced by something in VISION House—then go see it!

I can assure you the lines won’t be long.

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