Pixar Animation Studios — Steve Jobs’ other company — has moved into its new headquarters in Emeryville, Calif. and the New York Times has taken a look. In a recently posted article entitled Pixar’s New Digs Coddle Animators, Writers and Tech Heads, writer Rick Lyman got comments from Steve, John Lasseter, and other Pixar luminaries during his tour.
Pixar spent US$88 million on its new headquarters, which was built on the site of a defunct Del Monte fruit-canning factory. Emeryville itself is located between Oakland and Berkeley, a short drive from San Francisco.
“Where else this close to San Francisco can you find a plot of land this size?” Jobs asked Lyman.
Although the facility has been designed to evoke the feel of an industrial plant, it has all the modern amenities that Pixar needs, such as screening rooms, a recording studio, a render farm of high-speed graphics computers, and loads of creature comforts for the staff. Pixar creates computer-animated motion pictures like Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, and the forthcoming Monsters, Inc.
Lyman said that the new Pixar facility is a big improvement over what preceded it — a nondescript cluster of buildings in an office park several miles north of Pixar’s current locale.
Lyman noted that Steve Jobs only spends a day or so at Pixar every week, by Jobs’ own admission — presumably the rest of the time he’s at the helm of Apple. But the charismatic CEO’s legendary attention to detail was present in the creation of Pixar’s new headquarters.
“Mr. Jobs was deeply involved in its design and construction, down to the most minute detail,” wrote Lyman.