wikitecture | The ARCH

Wikitecture 4.0: Re-Inventing the Virtual Classroom

October 17, 2008, 3:48 pm
Filed under: virtual architecture, wikitecture | Tags: classroom, open source, second life, studio wikitecture, ua, university of alabama, virtual architecture, wikitecture, wikitecture | Tags: Second Life

New Wikitecture Project Kick-off event: October 23nd at 5:00pm Pacific (SL-time)

With so many universities and academic institutions from around the world using virtual environments like Second Life for teaching and research, many have started to wonder what, exactly is a virtual classroom?

In an environment where you can fly, and with no elements to protect from, what role does architecture play in a virtual university? In what ways should a virtual classroom be similar to a classroom in real life? How might they be different? How can the virtual architecture best serve the students, staff and community who use it?

Because buildings are so expensive to build and modify in the real world, rarely are students and staff able to actively participate in the creation of the physical spaces they use. In a virtual space, however, the tables are turned. Anyone can easily prototype their idea in 3D, walk through it, and share it with others. Given these new opportunities, why not let the students, staff and public community who actually use these classrooms design it for themselves? Who better, in fact, to offer insight to improve a occupied space, than the people that use it on a daily basis?

These are the questions, the Studio Wikitecture group has been asking for some time now. Composed of individuals from various backgrounds and open to anyone, the group has been asking whether new modes of production, as witnessed in the open-source movement, for example, can offer any clues into how we might improve the process of designing our buildings and cities, both real and virtual. In much the same way Wikipedia enables a loose, self-organizing network of contributors to come together to create a surprisingly accurate encyclopedia, the group has been conducting a number of experiments and projects to explore ways by which a disperse group, spread around the world, can come together to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and vote on the success or failure of an evolving piece of architecture.

Over the years, the group has conducted a number of experiments to flesh out the possibilities of a more decentralized approach to practicing architecture. In fact, Studio Wikitecture was recently honored with the Founder’s Award for their collaborative competition entry in last year’s Open Architecture Challenge to design a tele-medicine facility in one of the most remote areas of Western Nepal.

As you can imagine, having a group collaboratively design a building is a daunting and difficult task. In this light, Studio Wikitecture teamed up with i3dnow to develop a software prototype plug-in for the virtual world of Second Life that helped the group better collaborate on the collectively designed competition entry. The plug-in, in it’s simplest form, is a kind of of 3d-Wiki. The ‘Wiki-Tree’, as it is called, acts very much like a typical wiki, but instead of tracking versions of a text documents, it tracks virtual 3D models and unlike a conventional wiki that conveys submissions in a linear fashion, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ visual conveys, in a sort of 3-dimensional mind map, how the submitted designs iterations relate and ‘branch’ off each other over time.

To continue this exploration into open-source architecture, for the group’s 4th project, the University of Alabama has challenged you, its students and staff, to collectively brainstorm and design a virtual set of classrooms. Through this project, you will be working in close collaboration with both your professors and/or peers to design a series of classrooms in the virtual realm.

Furthermore, you and your fellow contributors will be awarded at total of $250,000 Linden dollars, distributed based on a unique ‘Community Assessment’ method. A method, whereby members of the community collectively determine the approximate percentage of credit each contributor deserves.

As with the last project, we will be using the 3d-Wiki versioning tool to keep track your and your fellow contributor’s design submissions. Through the ‘Wiki-Tree’, you will be able to review the various designs submitted, as well comment and vote on your preferences (or dislikes). As an overview, this video will give you a really quick sense on how the ‘Wiki-Tree’ works.

To participate, you’ll need to create a Second Life account HERE if you don’t have one already, then join the Studio Wikitecture group (in Second Life, click Search at the bottom). Then visit the University’s virtual site HERE (UA ESPRMC sim, 186, 87, 26), and click on the base of the Wiki-tree in order to register your avatar and get a password. This password will then give you access to the website component HERE, where you’ll be able to vote and comment on ideas submitted by the community.

For more information about how to use the Wiki-tree, visit this site:http://studiowikitecture.wikidot.com/how-to

In an effort to keep the project as open as possible and avoid hindering creativity, the following are the only guidelines to the project.

1. The architectural style is open to the group’s discretion.
2. We need six classrooms with ample space for student (30 avatars)
3. The disciplines we may house in the rooms include: Science, Mathematics, Art, English, Social Sciences, and Music.
4. No more than 800 prims total
5. Occupy no more than 5,000 square meters

We will also be holding regular tutorial sessions every Tuesday at 5pm SL-time, and at times requested by the community, for anyone who has questions or needs help submitting their idea.

If you have any questions, we can reached at the following emails:

Ryan Schultz (Theory Shaw in SL): (ryan.schultz [at] studiowikitecture [dot] com).

Jon Brouchoud (Keystone Bouchard in SL): (jon.brouchoud [at] studiowikitecture [dot] com).

See you there!

Cross-posted from the Studio Wikitecture blog

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Be2Camp Starting Soon! Exploring Web 2.0 and the Built Environment

October 10, 2008, 1:39 am
Filed under: architectural resources, architecture, architecture island, second life, wikitecture | Tags: architecture, be2camp, built environment, facility planning

Exploring Web 2.0 and the Built Enviornment

Be2camp is free to register and free to attend , and will be starting in just a few hours! This will be a BarCamp style ‘Unconference’ to promote the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the Built Environment (eg Architecture, Construction, Engineering, Facilities Management industries. More info here: http://be2camp.ning.com/

If all goes well, we will have a live stream on both Architecture Island and Public Works Island. If not, you can watch it on the web live at: http://be2camp.ning.com/page/page/show?id=2236538%3APage%3A2388

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Urbanism, Architecture, Planning: How Second Life Can Help Build the Urban Landscape of the First Life–and Vice Versa

June 24, 2008, 7:38 pm
Filed under: architectural resources, architecture, rl architecture, wikitecture | Tags: architecture, planning, real life, second life, studio wikitecture, urbanism, virtual world

I’m super excited to have the opportunity to be on a panel for Second Life’s 5th birthday party, called “Urbanism, Architecture, Planning: How Second Life Can Help Build the Urban Landscape of the First Life–and Vice Versa”

See you there?!?!

Here are the details:
Date/Time:
July 1, 12:00 p.m. PT

Location:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL5B%20Linked/185/187/25/

Moderator:
Rissa Maidstone (RL Kim Smith)

Participants:
Tab Scott (RL Terry Beaubois), Creative Research Lab, Montana State University
Diva Canto (RL Cristina Lopes), Dept. of Informatics, UC Irvine
Boston Borst (RL Eric Gordon), Department of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College, Hub2
Keystone Bouchard (RL Jon Brouchoud), Crescendo Design, Studio Wikitecture

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Wikitecture 3.0 Wins both Founder’s Award and 3rd Place!

June 4, 2008, 6:07 am
Filed under: 3D wiki, architecture for humanity, collaborative design, open architecture network, rl architecture, studio wikitecture, wikitecture | Tags: 3D wiki, architecture for humanity, collaboration, open architecture challenge, second life, virtual, wikitecture

courtyard

From Studio Wikitecture blog:

It is with great pleasure I bring you the news that Studio Wikitecture’s entry in the Open Architecture Network Challenge was awarded the ‘Founder’s Award’ as well as ‘3rd Place’ for our design of the Nyaya Tele-Medicine facility in Western Nepal. The announcement was made this morning.

Architecture for Humanity awarded its Founders Award to the third place Asia challenge finalist, Studio Wikitecture, for embracing a truly collaborative way of working using online crowdsourcing and Second Life as a way to create a highly participatory design approach. Source

I want to direct a big ‘congratulations’ to those individuals that contributed, on whatever level, to the ultimate success of this entry. Well done! In particular I would like to thank the following for their dedicated contributions.

Jon Brouchoud – (Keystone Bouchard in SL)

Roger Wellington-Oguri – (Omei Turnbull in SL)

Roberto Carretero – (Otrober Breda in SL)

Michael DiTullio – (Far Link in SL)

Simone Riccardi – (Turboy Runo in SL)

Ethos Erlanger in SL

Chip Poutine in SL

I would also like to thank the programming gurus at i3dnow for helping us develop the 3d-Wiki technology we used to help facilitate this whole process. With all the contributions made throughout the process, it would have been a virtual impossibility to build a consensus without it.

And finally a shout out to Kirsten Kiser from arcspace for generously donating a large part of her Second Life island to this project.

We’ve definitely come a long way since asking the question: Can the design and production of architecture learn anything from the open and decentralized methods of production demonstrated in projects such as Wikipedia and open-source software. We certainly learned a lot since the early days of Wikitecture 1.0 and 2.0. I have no doubt Wikitecture 4.0 will prove just as successful.

Thank You, Again.

Ryan Schultz

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Video of Wikitecture Presentation at Metaverse U Now Available

April 3, 2008, 5:01 pm
Filed under: jon brouchoud, metaverse u, wikitecture

If you can’t tell, I was more than a little nervous, and couldn’t quite shake my midwestern accent! =)

Many thanks to Henrik Bennetsen, Stanford University and everyone who helped make Metaverse U so successful (see more videos HERE). We did receive a lot of positive feedback and made some great connections with several individuals and companies interested in the possibility of helping us advance the project.

We haven’t reached our sponsorship goals yet, so if you’re interested in helping us develop the next phase, there’s still time! We have a wide range of goals, but we’re primarily interested in simplifying the interface and making this collaboration technology available to communities throughout the Second Life grid and beyond.

As if that’s enough RL Keystone for one day, here’s my little blurb/interview about what excites and scares me about metaverse technology:

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Wikitects in the Windy City and Life 2.0

March 18, 2008, 4:18 pm
Filed under: illinois institute of technology, jon brouchoud, ryan schultz, wikitecture

If you happen to be in the Chicago area, Ryan and I will be at the Illinois Institute of Technology on Tuesday, April 1st (6pm Central) talking about Wikitecture, and how virtual worlds and web 2.0 will revolutionize the architecture industry.

If you can’t make it to Chicago, you can attend our presentation from wherever you happen to live this Thursday, March 20th at 3pm PDT inside Second Life at the Life 2.0 summit (register HERE).

Both events are free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

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The Final Design: Wikitecture 3.0…. thank you!

March 5, 2008, 5:10 pm
Filed under: 3D wiki, architecture for humanity, nyaya health, open architecture network, open source, open source architecture, rl architecture, wikitecture | Tags: 3D wiki, nyaya health, open architecture challengesecond life, wikitecture

I just wanted to thank all the contributors on the OAN Nepal Challenge for all their hard work and dedication over the last couple months. The following images are of the final boards submitted to the OAN project site (larger images here). You can be your own judge, but I think they turned out great! What a far cry from Wikitecture 1.0. Looking forward to Wikitecture 4.0, whatever project that may be.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their patience and persistence in working through a very rough and rudimentary technology. Although the ‘Wiki-Tree’ and website have a long way to go to improve upon their usability, the final project is a major testament to the potential of what can result from a more open source approach to architecture.

It goes without saying we learned a lot from this last experiment and are excited to further refine the Wikitecture technology to allow for more seamless collaboration on future projects. In this regard, if you have a project you’d like to have designed and developed via this more open, Wikitecture way, please let us know. (ryan [dot] schultz [at] studiowikitecture [dot] com). Having been part of the Studio Wikitecture group for some time, I am confident that the group has enough skill and experience, architectural and otherwise, to tackle any size project that we would have the good fortune to be offered. I’m sure Wikitecture 4.0 will continue to demonstrate what can happen when a loose network of passionate individuals are given the tools to collaborate around an architectural project.

Thank you.

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Wikitecture’s N-Tuple Brain Continues Work on the 3D Wiki

December 9, 2007, 1:21 am
Filed under: 3D wiki, open source architecture, wikitecture

Here is a transcript of Friday’s Wikitecture meeting on Friday (link), and here is a slideshow (link). The in-world 3D wiki portion of the open source architecture project is advancing nicely, as is the web forum. We have collaboratively assembled a significant amount of information and insight about the culture of Nepal, the regional vernacular, local materials, site realities and more.

Here is my conclusion:

“While we certainly hope this project results in a successful entry in the competition, it is important for us to remember that this is still just an experiment, and the technology will always be evolving.

But in the end, I think we have to ask ourselves – ‘What if this works?’ The fact of the matter is – if we can collectively prove that multiple designers can collaborate on 3D design within a wiki-like methodology, that reality holds the potential to completely revolutionize the industry.

When you amplify the scale of Wikitecture, it could change the entire way we look at city planning as well. The possibilities are truly limitless.

However, I would like to conclude with the following thought. The Wiki-tree technology is only a very small fraction of what Wikitecture really is all about. Just like Wikipedia – it is nothing without a strong community of contributors.

Likewise, as you read about the reality of the Open Architecture Challenge we are working on, you start to realize that this isn’t really about winning a competition either. These people need serious help, and I want to be a member of a team that has the best chance at helping these people.

As you’ve seen, the first batch of design concepts are truly innovative – and they are just the beginning.

Even if you aren’t an architect or a designer, everyone has a certain innate ability to understand space, and Second Life gives you the chance to express your ideas. I really hope you’ll consider working with us, reading up on what we’ve learned so far about the project, and seeing if you can contribute or strengthen what we have here so far. “

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State of the Wiki

November 14, 2007, 9:56 pm
Filed under: open architecture network, wikitecture

Who ever said there’s nothing to DO in Second Life?!? Here’s a brief clip showing the current state of the Wiki Tree after week 1.

We’ve got the land, we’ve got the project, we’ve got the technology – now all we need is YOU! Pick up your virtual toolbelt, and help us win the Open Architecture Challenge.

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