Draft:Andy Waisler

Computer Graphics

In the mid-1990s, Waisler co-founded the computer-animation studio PropellerHead Design with filmmakers J. J. Abrams and Rob Letterman.^[6] The company produced computer animated content for HBO. Later they were contracted by DreamWorks Animation to help develop the original digital pipeline for Shrek, creating an early animation test, featuring the voice of Chris Farley in the title role, known as Shrek – I Feel Good Animation Test.^[6]

Nicole LaPorte’s 2010 book The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks documents DreamWorks’ collaboration with the PropellerHead team during the film’s early development. LaPorte writes that Katzenberg hired the group to experiment with motion-capture in animation and quotes Waisler recalling the period as a nascent time, noting that “CGI was being invented every time anyone did anything.”^[7]

Before returning to architecture, Waisler worked in visual effects and motion graphics for film and television. His credits include How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), The Time Machine (2002), Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), I, Robot (2004), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Cinderella Man (2005), and, Aeon Flux (2005). He also designed the title sequence for Felicity.^[8]

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Architecture

Before founding his own studio, Waisler collaborated with architect Neil Denari on a series of digital residential projects including the Massey Residence (also known as the Schnitt Haus, 1994–1996) and the Vertical Smoothhouse (1997).^[9] The Massey Residence was an early example of photo realistic computer visualization in architecture, representing one of the first digitally modeled residential projects to gain international recognition. The project was featured in The Un-Private House, a 1999 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) curated by Terence Riley, situating it among key works that explored new forms of domestic space in the digital era.^[10] Prints of the project are held in the Frac Centre-Val de Loire collection in Orléans, France.^[11]

Waisler's own practice currently focuses on production and post-production environments for the entertainment industry. Waisler designed the headquarters of Bad Robot in Santa Monica, completed with Shimoda Design Group.^[12] The project was widely covered for its reinterpretation of light-industrial buildings as creative workspace. Interior Design magazine’s 2010 feature *“Double Feature: Joey Shimoda and Andy Waisler Turn Two Santa Monica Buildings into a Film Studio”* profiled the Bad Robot design as an adaptive reuse of two industrial structures into a film-studio campus, noting it's *“cinematic approach to space and light”* and the seamless integration of creative culture and workspace.^[13] In Fast Company, journalist K. C. Ifeanyi called it *“the coolest office in Hollywood ever,”* describing its informal communal spaces and workshop-like character.^[14]

In a 2012 public talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, Abrams discussed his collaboration with Waisler on the Bad Robot headquarters, describing him as “a passionate and wonderful architect.” Abrams recalled, "You know, to go to work on something about design, but be met by someone saying, "I want you to listen to this piece of music."…, it's the greatest, because suddenly you’re feeling something, and that feeling then gets translated into the work in an unexpected way" Abrams added that Waisler asked him to make “a list of all the things you want the place to be, not just technically … but in terms of emotion and feeling,” adding that after the building was complete “he had done all of them.”^[15]

Subsequent projects include an animation-studio conversion in Santa Monica with Gwynne Pugh Urban Studio, featured in ArchDaily, World-Architects, and Inhabitat.^[16][17][18] He has also collaborated with HLW International, Loescher Meachem Architects, and Shimoda Design Group on facilities for Illumination Entertainment, Skydance Media, Annapurna Pictures, and Mark Gordon Productions.^[19][20][21]

In a 2017 interview on the CG Garage Podcast, Waisler discussed the intersection of digital visualization and architecture, noting how his background in production continues to inform his design process.^[22] His work has been described as blending “the narrative sensibility of film production with the permanence of architecture.”^[13][14]

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