UNIVERSAL CITY PLAZA

DESCRIPTIVE DATA

Project No. 7:            Getty Plaza / 10 Universal City Plaza
Architecture Firm                                                                 of Record:                Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Design Firm:             Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Completion Date:      1986
Role of Nominee:       Project Designer

This 36 story, 900,000 sf office building was designed for the corporate headquarters for the Getty Oil Company and developed by MCA and Getty Oil. The site is located at the San Fernando Valley entrance to the Cahenga Pass at the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway. As the northern-most building on the MCA/Universal Studios campus it serves as the signature marker to the west entrance of the Studios and Universal City Walk. The parallelogram footprint of the green granite and glass clad office building inflects toward the freeway and captures a lush landscaped urban park and lake between the 5 level, 3,000 space parking structure and the landscaped screened US-101 off ramp. The garden has extensive mature landscaping surrounding a rock-lined “naturalistic” lake which has a water geyser that acoustically screens the freeway traffic. The garage base at the upper plaza entry level has retail commercial activities, company cafeteria, and health club facilities off of the park.  

The 2:1 parallelogram floor plan and central core allows flexible tenant layout for full or multi-tenant floors. The polished green granite facade has minimally reflective coated light green glass that maximizes the surrounding views of the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Fernando Valley. The star jasmine filled terraced stone planters transitions the strong geometrically shaped building form to the pedestrian oriented sidewalk street level.  The main entry on the upper terrace level is accessed by grand public stairs from the street and directly from the parking structure under a protective skylighted canopy.  Site lighting is from custom designed bollards and the Pilkington glass and stone clad core lobby has custom designed indirect wall washers. The parking structure is clad in the same green granite as the building enhances the consistency of the design of a total complex: an office building, parking structure and landscaped park designed as an ensemble of defined buildings and urban spaces.

AWARDS RECEIVED:        

                 1986 BOMA Building of the Year
                 1986 Steel Fabricator’s Award

PUBLICATIONS:        

                 BOMA Los Angeles Annual Publication