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Disney's studio was built for north light
Built for light
In the northern hemisphere, the sun moves across the southern sky, so north-facing windows offer the most consistent, indirect light. The buildings were shaped with fins so that many sides faced north, which makes the whole complex look like a CPU heat sink from above. Custom slats on the windows adjusted to let in just the right amount of light, and it was one of the first buildings in Southern California with air conditioning. Once that building was laid out, the campus was built around it.
The campus
The campus covered 51 acres and had sports fields, a cafeteria, art classes, massages, and sunbathing in a penthouse club. Walt put it in Burbank, then the sticks outside Los Angeles, away from other studios controlled by their distributor bosses in New York. It was built to house more than 1,200 animators and staff, up from about 300 before Snow White.
Walt expected the new campus to let Disney release two animated features every year. Snow White had taken three years.
Why do artists favor north light?
North-facing windows receive no direct sun in the northern hemisphere, so the light stays steady through the day. Painters have used north-facing studios and skylights for centuries. The light has a cooler tone and fewer harsh shadows. Disney applied the idea to a whole campus.
Where did the studio work before Burbank?
Disney worked from a studio on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Buildings were added piece by piece as the company grew, and space ran short. The move to Burbank came in 1939 and 1940. The Hyperion site was later sold.
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