From Lucasfilm to reality: Star Wars Sandcrawler

According to StarWars.com, Sandcrawlers are 'huge treaded fortresses used by Jawas as transportation and shelter.' The Sandcrawler in Singapore is an eight story building that will be used by Lucasfilm as its first overseas production facility.

The gleaming building version of the Sandcrawler, or CX 2-1, was designed by the architecture firm Aedas. The facility will house retail, parking, public gardens, a data center, production facilities, a 100 seat theater, and offices for nearly every division of Lucasfilm.

Because the development guidelines for the property placed strict limits on and requirements for the building footprint and envelop, the familiar Sandcrawler shape was altered to an open horseshoe in plan. Aedas claims the floor plan allows the building to achieve a usable area efficiency of over 80%. The renderings below compare the envisioned interior courtyard of the Sandcrawler building to the envisioned interior of the original Sandcrawler.

The building is currently under construction and scheduled to open in late 2012 and has already won design awards, including the 2011 International Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum.

Via: Gizmodo
Images: DK, Aedas

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com