“Star Wars” Creator Donates Funding, Ideas for USC Film School
Alumnus George Lucas encourages sustainable design

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

Summary: Filmmaker George Lucas has contributed $175 million to the University of Southern California (USC), his alma mater, to fund its new School of Cinematic Arts. The gift is the largest in the school's history and covers $100 million for an endowment and $75 million for construction. Dallas-based Urban Design Group, Inc. will design the 130,000-square-foot Mediterranean Revival complex—a design popularized in 1920s southern California. The project, which broke ground October 4, is being designed to meet Gold-level LEED®
certification standards.

Sustainability—a fact of life
Lucas, who graduated from the USC cinema program in 1966 and is a current board member, was joined at the groundbreaking by fellow filmmaker and board member Steven Spielberg, along with luminaries from entertainment and higher education. The new USC School of Cinematic Arts, formerly known as the USC School of Cinema Television, will combine an undergraduate and graduate student body of 1,300 and reflect the environmental vision of Lucasfilm and USC.

John M. Novack Jr., FAIA, principal and director, Urban Design Group, worked with Lucas and USC on the sustainable design. “I think sustainable design is a fact of life now,” Novack says. “It is almost something you don’t think too much about anymore because that is what you should do.”

Novack and his team gave the design the smallest possible environmental footprint

Novack and his team gave the design the smallest possible environmental footprint. The building’s concrete structure mimics adobe-style mud block to conserve materials. The design takes advantage of climate and site orientation, factoring in winds, sun, and view corridors. The thick mass of the exterior allows the building to heat up and cool down slowly while protecting the building from Los Angeles’ heat and noise. High-efficiency glazing reduces heat gain during the summer months and heat loss during the winter. Radiant panels for heating and cooling on the upper administrative and teaching floors will be one of the largest systems of its type in Los Angeles County and use 60 percent of the university’s existing cold/hot water lines.

In addition to using recycled and recyclable materials for construction, sustainable features also include:

• Air distribution systems under the main screening room floors to take advantage of the local temperate climate
• A BIM virtual design that pinpointed ways to minimize construction waste and other mistakes normally not found until construction takes place; BIM will also reduce time and cost of future repair by making estimates and predicting modifications
• Minimal pollution from construction
• A flexible earthquake-resistant design to ride mild to severe earthquakes with no or limited damage.

Open spaces, by George
An open modular design, maximized via spacing of concrete columns, allows quick conversion of learning spaces into several room sizes and use configurations. Open corridors contribute to the variety of spaces without creating restrictive exit paths. Open spaces also allow for eight screening rooms; lab and presentation spaces; a café; a central plaza; and collaborative areas for students, faculty, and invited guests.

Novack explains that the way films will continue to be made was a factor in the open design: “We needed to have that space flexibility because of the less-than-clear line as to whether movies will be made in digital or film. We know movies will be recorded and projected through lenses, but we are not sure how they will be kept and treasured. There is an almost equal weight towards the old film as well as the new digital technology, so whatever we designed had to stay out of the way of the future but be able to facilitate it. And this was specifically requested by George Lucas because of his respect of the way filmmakers feel one way or the other. He was clear in his statement that he is going digital, but some of his fellow directors, like Steven Spielberg, feel differently, and Mr. Lucas has a lot of respect for that feeling.”

The way films will continue to be made—digital or film—was a factor in the open design

Novack was impressed with Lucas as “architect”: “He was an active participant in this project. It was one of the most unexpected experiences I have ever had. I had no idea how much he is an architect. When you think about his films, of course, he is an architect, but he is also one in a very serious way. A good portion of his library at his Skywalker ranch is devoted to architecture. He is well versed on architecture, has a good sense of authenticity, is a leader in more than vision, and is quite good at giving direction. I would do it again.”