MDC Unveils Plan for New Video Game and Animation Building

Wolfson Campus President José Vicente unveiled plans for the future development of the Miami Animation Gaming International Complex (MAGIC) at the MIA Animation Conference Oct. 10. Housed  at Wolfson Campus, building 8, the new facility will focus on helping students enter the expanding video game and animation industries.

“All of the spaces [will] create an interactive setting in which students can learn, explore and produce in a venue which exceeds the environments currently used throughout the industry,” said Debbie Wilkinson, Senior Project Manager for Harvard Jolly, a Ft. Lauderdale-based architecture firm.

The bright, colorful and airy complex will feature a number of unique spaces. One of them is an interactive gallery of student projects, which will consist of a superstructure made up of transparent wall panels and column twists. Another is The Brain, a collaborative inter-connected gamer environment which will feature furniture that will support dual touch-screen monitors on each student station. An Incubator Room is where animation and gaming professionals will instruct students using technology that allows for graphics and sketches to be drawn atop changing backgrounds.

Other amenities will include a motion capture studio, sound engineering and color correction suites, and a screening hall.

According to Wilkinson and to Senior Director of Campus Administration, Cristina Mateo, construction of MAGIC will be completed by 2015. The project is currently in the bidding phase and the final cost of construction is yet to be determined.

On stage at the MIA Animation Conference, alongside speakers such as Florida State Representative Erik Fresen and former Disney animator Tom Sito, Vicente unveiled Harvard Jolly’s rendering of MAGIC’s multiple rooms and said: “This is MAGIC in the magic city of Miami, folks.”