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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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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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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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Collaborative City Planning, Urban Design and Architecture in Second Life – Machinima

October 16, 2007, 11:19 pm
Filed under: architectural resources, architecture island, collaborative design, community, open source architecture, studio wikitecture, wikitecture | Tags: architecture, city planning, collaboration, design, metaverse, open, second life, source, virtual, wiki, wikitecture

Here are two demonstrations of collaboration in Second Life. The first shows how city planners, urban designers or members of the community might use virtual worlds to describe, discuss and even co-create design concepts. The second shows how multiple contributors can work together simultaneously on an architectural design concept.

Of course, it is evident that something is missing in this collaborative process. It is not yet ‘wiki’, insofar as people cannot return to previous iterations, or evaluate the effectiveness of other contributions. Conflicts of opinion cannot be easily resolved, and input from the other contributors must be synchronous. What this means is if all of the contributors are not on site at all times, the design can take on a completely different direction based on extensive work by a single designer without group consensus. Furthermore, there is no easy way to resort to a previous iteration should such a conflict of opinion occur. Commenting on the success or failure of another designer’s contribution is left to synchronous chat, with no easy way to discern the opinion of the entire group at any time.

If we really want collaboration in virtual worlds to be more wiki-like, we will need tools. We hope the ‘Wikitecture Tree’ will help us take steps toward realizing an ‘Open Source Architecture’ and will be launching it soon to help the Studio Wikitecture group take on the Open Architecture Challenge.

Here’s a brief clip showing one part of the Wikitecture Tree, namely the ‘leaves’. The leaf color is based on its popularity, where orange leaves are least popular, green leaves are more popular, and a ‘trunk’ being the current community favorite – based on an integrated vote tallying system. When a new iteration is submitted to the tree, it automatically creates a new leaf. Contributors will be able to cycle through, vote and comment on each design as they rez on an adjacent platform. A better explanation is on the SW blog HERE.

Join the Studio Wikitecture group in SL to partipate in the next experiment! Everyone is welcome.

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Can Virtual Collaboration Win the Open Architecture Challenge? Wikitecture 3.0 is ON it!

September 26, 2007, 11:29 pm
Filed under: open architecture network, wikitecture | Tags: architect, architecture, build, building, collaboration, collaborative, design, designer, life, metaverse, open, second, source, virtual, wikinomics, wikipedia, wikitecture, world

There’s still plenty of time to join the team! You don’t need any architectural experience, just a willingness to collaborate, learn and help people in the world who need it most.

You can find a transcript of our first Wikitecture 3.0 project discussion HERE.

During Tuesday’s 9am meeting (the time of which was determined by group vote), the community decided to enter a brief R&D phase, and will be spending the next week gathering information about each of the 3 challenges to determine which we will pursue. We are also trying to find potential collaborators in SL or in RL with expertise, or may have lived or currently live near any of these real-life regions to join the team. Perhaps there are nearby universities in these regions we could collaborate with? Are there any unique features of these challenges that lend themselves more or less to a Wikitecture or Second Life build? Scale? Materials? Site?
We’re seeking answers to these questions, and will paste our findings in the new Wikitecture Wiki HERE. If you have any ideas or thoughts on this project, feel free to post them on the wiki!

KK Jewell of arcspace has offered to allow the experiment to be built on the new arcspace island! This is a very generous offer, and we are very grateful! Thanks KK!

Stay tuned for info, date and time for our next gathering, and IM Keystone Bouchard or Theory Shaw in Second Life if you have any questions, or wish to join the team!

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