The community seeks to achieve the structure of classic older American cities such as Charleston or Savannah through the use of pattern books. These pattern books articulate the design codes the community is based on. The designs called for in the pattern books for single family residential and townhomes are combined with apartments placed over shops and restaurants in the downtown. Still more renters are accommodated in carriage house style accessing apartments above the garages of single family homes. Parking lots are hidden in courtyards inside the downtown blocks.
Public space is designed in a way that encourages walking.
To give downtown the distinction a list of designers was named. Both the Town Center and residential villages of Celebration benefit from planning in three dimensions, not the usual subdivision layout in two dimensions, not the usual subdivision layout in two dimensions. The plans and renderings, as well as the standards for development, truly represent what the place will look like. Instead of being wrapped by residential lots, the course becomes both a park for residents to enjoy walking or bicycling by and a greenbelt that buffers Celebration on its northern edge. Architects adept in each style were commissioned to develop essential criteria.