Herding Cats? Wikitecture and the Future of Collaborative Design

Herding Cats? Wikitecture and the Future of Collaborative Design

February 14, 2007, 5:50 pm
Filed under: architect, architectural resources, architecture, collaborative, collaborative design, rl architecture, second life, virtual architecture, wikitecture

Thursday, February 15: 6:30 pm SL-Time in the RL Architects gathering space HERE. (Map ‘The Homestead’ in SL)

First, a welcome to new members of the group! Newbie real life architects from around the world are showing up in Second Life on an almost daily basis now, and the architectural projects populating the island are serving as an ideal proving grounds to our new guests. Their chance encounters and advice from other architects they meet on the island is what keeps them coming back. Many thanks to the island’s contributors for making this ‘the’ place for architects in SL!

We recently invited the in-world group to participate in a Wikitecture experiment on the island. Several weeks after the notice was posted, the build has enjoyed contributions from at least 11 different architects. It has turned out to be a rather eclectic, meandering (and incredibly compelling) composition IMHO.

However, this is obviously not a ‘wiki’ in the traditional sense. In this case, we wanted the unique characteristics of each contributor to ‘read’ in the final composition, which resulted in a build that serves as a kind of living cross-section of the group’s genetic makeup.

Is true Wikitecture and collaborative asynchronous design possible in Second Life? If so, what kinds of tools, scripts and rules might be necessary? Some exciting ideas are already beginning to surface.

Please join us in a Wikitecture exploration discussion within this new ‘space’ this Thursday night. I will be introducing a new officer, and announcing some exciting new developments within the RL Architects community!

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