?? When is a Place not a Place?

In this week's #exploringlinkedin newsletter I'm headed to places in the world that are meant to simulate other places, whether for entertainment, research, or a combination of both.

I chanced upon this idea as I was scrolling through the posts in my feed, and came across a post from Perkins&Will, and architecture and planning firm based in Chicago, Illinois. Our first stop, however, isn't Chicago. We headed instead to...

London, England

PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory) is a recently-completed facility in East London, designed by Penoyre & Prasad, a London-based studio of Perkins&Will for University College London. The building itself is a marvel, including its construction and operation (net zero carbon to operate the building), but what I found fascinating was its purpose: to recreate a wide variety of real-world conditions (including sound) at scale in order to test how people move through and react to designs in our built environment.

It's essentially a massive, special-purpose "soundstage" lab. I understand one of their first projects is testing a safety sound for scooters in real-world city traffic and noise conditions. Absolutely amazing!

Iver Heath, England and San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic

With a small hop to Iver Heath, England then a big leap to the Dominican Republic, we're next taking a look at the Caribbean Horizon Water Tank, part of the studio facility operated by Pinewood Group Limited in San Pedro de Macorís.

The tank is designed to blend seamlessly with the ocean behind, offering filmmakers 60,500 sq ft of state-of-the-art water filming capability. Recent films that shot at the studio, using the tank, are Old and The Lost City.

Pinewood Studios group is quite active on LinkedIn, with (as of time of writing) 3 open jobs, over 230 employees, and 50,000 followers. Recently, they posted to celebrate BAFTA award winners that were filmed at their facilities. Where to next? Glad you asked, because it's beautiful, stylish...

Milan, Italy

So far, we've visited a giant lab and an enormous water tank, but it's time for a slightly different turn, inspired by set design. We're visiting one of the most famous opera houses in the world: Teatro alla Scala. That's right, there are opera companies on LinkedIn! And they post about job openings! Give them a follow.

La Scala might justifiably be called the world's most famous opera house (it's at least one of the most famous), and it's been in continuous operation since its founding in 1778. Over its long history, it's been home to numerous premiers of now-legendary operas, including Madame Butterfly.

On their website, I found a program focused on training set designers. While it seems that it's not open this year, what an incredible opportunity to learn at one of the world's most storied and famous places! Next, we're jetting back to North America, and getting a little darker.

San Francisco, California, United States

We're headed to a planetarium!

Specifically, the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences, a very special place in Golden Gate Park that is both museum and educational institution. It's rightly famous for the quality of its exhibits and its distinctive architecture (designed by Renzo Piano) that includes a beautiful living roof. This is a place that I've actually visited in person, and I can testify that it is a truly magical location. I'm a sucker for a good planetarium show!

The have an absolutely lovely and well-maintained company page here on LinkedIn, and they have some amazing current job openings.

I, for one, think they deserve a larger following here and I hope they post more often about how they do their work and all the amazing effort that goes into planning, building, and running such a treasure of an institution.

Burbank, California, United States

For our final stop on this week's tour of 'simulated places' we're in Burbank, California, at Monolith Virtual Production, 'a full service production and content creation company specializing in proprietary LED volume architecture, content-to-display systems and services, and top tier technical expertise for customized virtual production workflow.'

There are many virtual production companies on LinkedIn, including my friend Daniel Hsia's Virtual Production House in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It's a hot and growing segment of the industry.

Made famous by the behind the scenes coverage of The Walt Disney Company's Star Wars series The Mandalorian, virtual production in a 'volume' has started to rapidly transform the film and television industry. A volume is a studio environment with a large, wraparound array of LED screens that can display a set backdrop and provide realistic lighting and reflections. Much more immersive than green screens everywhere!

When filming, the camera(s) within the volume can be tracked in 3D space, which allows the image on the LED screens within the camera's field of view to change with the camera angle in order to provide accurate parallax and create a convincing sense of depth behind the actors and set elements in the foreground.?

In many ways, the traditional production process has been turned on its head with this new way of working, taking advantage of some amazing advances in realtime 3D graphics engines like Unity to create realistic virtual sets ahead of production, instead of developing them afterward and inserting them into footage captured in front of green or blue screens.

And that's a wrap on this week's Exploring LinkedIn! Hope you enjoyed the tour. Can you find more places on LinkedIn that are meant to simulate others? I'm curious to try and find more lab spaces, as I'm sure there are things like tornado simulation labs out there. Happy exploring!