Project will restore 1950s buildings and deliver new sound stages, office space and shops
Foster & Partners has revealed proposals to restore and expand Television City studios in Los Angeles, which is home to CBS.
The broadcaster sold the 10ha complex – which features original 1952 buildings by William Pereira – to Hackman Capital Partners in 2019. The business owns a host of other studios in the United States, and also The Wharf Studios in Barking, east London, and Pyramids Studios in Bathgate, Scotland.
Hackman has appointed Fosters to restore the Pereira buildings and design a low-rise “multi-modal campus” with new sound stages, production offices, creative office space, and retail space along its perimeter.
The practice said the new elements would be inserted into a “flexible low-carbon structural grid” that learned from LA’s renowned Case Study Houses, developed in the years following the end of the second world war.
Its appointment comes three years after design firm Rios Inc was hired to masterplan a US$1.25bn (£988m) overhaul of the complex.
Fosters said its proposed “green campus” would “set a new precedent for sustainable and community-centred developments within a city”.
It said the modernisation proposals would keep Pereira’s buildings at the studio’s heart and arrange the campus into two distinct zones that focused on content-production and media operations.
Fosters said that production offices would be adjacent to the planned new stages to improve productivity and enhance collaboration between departments.
It said buildings would be “flooded with natural light” and tied together by tree-lined pedestrian boulevards, pocket parks and courtyards, while street-level retail would activate the perimeter of the studios and have a positive social impact on the surrounding area.
The practice pledged that Television City would be LA’s first all-electric studio, and would feature on-site renewable electricity and a mobility hub designed to reduce vehicle trips by up to 30%.
Fosters’ head of studio David Summerfield said the campus would celebrate Television City’s 70-year history and set a new benchmark for the entertainment industry.
“It’s a great privilege to breathe new life into Pereira’s iconic and inherently flexible building, which forms the heart of our modular scheme,” he said.
“The campus is designed to embody LA’s innovative spirit, while integrating seamlessly with the city fabric and reinvigorating the surrounding streets at a human-scale.”
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