Letterman Digital Arts Center, San Francisco
Gensler, HKS Inc., and The Office of Lawrence Halprin
As any Star Wars fan knows, George Lucas has a knack for building worlds, though they are usually on screen. Yet when he decided to consolidate his companies Lucasfilm, LucasArts, and Industrial Light & Magic on a 23-acre site in San Francisco's picturesque Presidio, a former U.S. military base, Lucas signed up as the "primary conceptual designer" for the project. The result is not only a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold-certified building that fits seamlessly into its setting, but one that establishes the world's preeminent center for digital media.
By bringing together the ILMers developing special effects for movies and LucasArts employees developing video games, the building -- really a campus of four buildings linked by a 10-gigabit network -- reflects (and accelerates) the convergence of those industries. The digital entertainment engine is powered by more than 3,000 processors running 24/7 that can send hundreds of terabytes of data over the network, a factor-of-10 upgrade over the company's former system.
To preserve the verdant environment of its Presidio surroundings, the facility's 1,500 parking spaces are placed underground, and all
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