Photo credit: www.billlyonsphotography.com

The Jawas are moving up in the world.

A new building in Singapore, tabbed the “Sandcrawler,” is a glass and metal manifestation of the Sandcrawler vehicle featured in the movie “Star Wars: A New Hope.” In the movie, the Sandcrawler was a large, mobile shelter for the “Jawas” race. The 242,000-square foot office tower, however, will serve as the regional headquarters for building owner Lucasfilm Singapore, as well as The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) and ESPN Asia Pacific.

Unlike the vehicle in the movie, the real-life Sandcrawler is clad in a high-performance glass curtainwall featuring PPG’s Solarban 72 Starphire glass. The glass was fabricated by AVIC Sanxin of Shenzhen, China, and installed by the Permasteelisa operation in Singapore.

PPG architectural manager Annissa Flickinger says the builder was looking for the “clearest glass possible” but with the “best performance given the heat and humidity of Singapore.”

She explains that while the front façade has a seamless, chrome look to it from the street, the back of the building, which takes on a horseshoe shape, “demonstrates how transparent the glass truly is.”

“I think it looks incredible,” she says.

The design of the building, which officially opened in January, has been recognized in the Leading European Architects Awards, the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Awards, the MIPIM Asia Awards and the Cityscape Awards for Architecture in Emerging Markets.

The Sandcrawler has received Gold Plus Green Mark certification from the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore, thanks in part to its energy-efficient glass façade and PPG’s triple-silver-coated, solar control, low-E glass.