Aurora Borealis Lounge

I thought a good name for the Student/Faculty Lounge could be "Aurora Borealis". This is mostly inspired by the shape and other imagined features (and because it's Michigan). Here is the begin of the blueprints for it.

Blueprints: Amphitheater and Library

It's nice to see some really solid geometry. I think they will be that much better once we add the textures.

GO BLUEprints

I've begun making blueprints. This does not mean that anything is set in stone. If anything, it might inspire some greater understanding that will lead to critique and evolution. The Library is especially tentative, because I haven't heard from Jane yet about the new look. Here's a peak:

The Medical History Museum and Public Library

Creative Structuring

It is one of my main goals to create a campus that fosters interconnectedness and creativity. Here are some of the ways that I'm trying to do that.

Mixed-Use Urban Planning: By keeping spaces that have different uses within proximixy to one another, we can help bolster the vitality of the overall experience. The mixed-use approach is straight from Jane Jacobs' "Death and Life of Great American Cities".

Openness: All buildings, even the ones that have more closed structures, are visually open to the public eye.

Access: Whether through transparency, or just plain openings, avatars should be able to enter and exit these buildings with ease. There is the exception of the Simulation building which needs to be protected against interruptions for training purposes.

Memorable Structures: Each Quadrant as a strong character. This way, people don't feel like they are in a quadrant that they are not. The Libraries are one exception to this; they both have similar structures. To make them distinguishable from one another, they will have different proportions (The Private Library is narrower.).

Dynamics: The sandboxes are syncopated and populated with a few trees to avoid mental blocks to creativity. Breaking them into mini grids allows people to have a sense of their own space, but their proximity promotes interaction.

That's probably not everything, but I think it gives you a clearer sense of what has been going through my head for the past few months.

Amphitheater Obelisks

I'm not trying to mimic the Egyptians, really. :)
I just think obelisks will give a clearer view from the ground where the Amphitheater is located. I'm still working on the positioning, though. Lights at the top could possibly indicate whether a lecture was underway.

Open Library

When I designed the Library buildings I was thinking of very open structures that had permeable membranes. In a recent visit with Jane Blumenthal, we found that she has a desire to open up the structures even further than this. She even talked about having the Library in the woods or on a grassy plain. I thought this was so fantastic, because these are spaces that I'm taking inspiration from.
While they are about as open as they can be at this point physically, they still have a lot of visual closure. So, in trying to chop-the-top I ran into a few other design ideas. I think this solution is more elegant than the first, the levels would still be scalloped and alternating, and the top floor is completely open, as requested.

(We're mainly looking at the structure at the top right.)
I'd love to hear feedback.

Revised Layout

I've made some changes to the Flash map of the island to reflect the small changes that were made in the larger drawings. There are even a few other little things that I started playing with, such as pillars near the amphitheater and new Library ideas. This map is my anchor for making the blueprints, so I thought I'd update it.

Virtual Library Opportunity

Article from Library Journal:

"In Philadelphia, Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology landed two hefty awards. A $613,478 grant with a $667,618 match will, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, Florida State University, and the University of Pittsburgh, 'transform the Internet Public Library (IPL) into a fully featured virtual learning laboratory for digital reference.' "

I guess we'll have to ask our Library contacts more about this article, because Michigan is involved. Perhaps there is a lot we could do considering that Drexel and Michigan are both in on this (and Pittsbugh is halfway). We'll definitely have to find out more.

Interiors, Begin

I've started working out some of the issues related to the interiors of our buildings. Here's the start:

Color Quadrants

I think we're pretty close now. I can see the light up ahead. Over the next week, I'll be traveling, so I'm going to work on interiors and some sculpture drawings. Let me know what you think of the new designs.

Private gets color and detail

I've gone into a little more detail here than with the others. I would like to go further. I know the detail is still all speculative. But I think it is this speculation that will help people to envision what they could do on Wolverine Island. I also discover things I hadn't thought about before when I'm doing these little details.

Simulation Building

I was doing my little doodles in the Simulation Building, and I began to see some glimmers of ideas of what it would or could be used for. Imagined simulating hospitals in the third world, new machines, and just the medical environment in general (colors and shapes etc). There are so many possibilities here.

Public gets color

Here's Public. Just like the Arb, this isn't the finished version. After I do this level of work to all sections I'll go back and pull them all together.

Voice and Sculpted Prims

New tools are being introduced to Second Life. They are really exciting. One is sculpties, which uses an image map's colors as the coordinates for a mesh (I'm in love). The other is Voice, which allows people to talk to each other in Second Life, if they have a headset. Jamie and I tried it, and it is a completely different experience than the usual.
Some people are suspicious of these new tools.
I'm all for these new developments. Voice may create a subdivision, but I don't necessarily think that it will be a stratification. It's more of a diversification. Besides, anyone who's tried VoiceBeta realizes what happens once your typing fingers are free; your avatar comes to life. It can move around and communicate simultaneous. It's a lot of fun and will be really useful for in-world interactions.
I just learned about Sculpted Prims this morning. What a weird baby! They are no more intuitive than the tools that LL (Linden Labs) has already provided, though. No worries to the existing SL (Second Life) builders. In fact, I think it is a boon to them, another tool in their box.
Voice and Sculpted Prims shouls be very exciting tools for us to use on Wolverine Island.

I feel like I'm in Michigan

This is so much fun. I've been doodling on these drawings for a while now and was beginning to get overwhelmed. Add a touch of color and it's so very fresh again. Just note that this image is not yet complete. I'll be doing the same to the other three.

Workspace 2

I'm getting lost inside of these drawings. Wolverine Island is becoming more immersive everyday.

Audio Feeds

Just an idea for audio on Wolverine Island. Aside from localized sounds such as birds and insects in the Arb or bell sounds at the Tower, I thought we could link-up with live stations such as WCBN. Maybe WCBN would be best zoned to the Student Lounge area. Then, perhaps WHYY could stream in the Diag area. WDET at the Sandboxes?

I'm not exactly sure how or if this would work, but even if it's not as easy as copying a link into a script, we may be able to get the cooperation of such stations to stream into Second Life, because of the exposure.

The Rest

Since this blog was started a little late, I'd like to send you (if "you" are new) to url that has some of the images and Flash layouts that came prior to the Quadrant drawings.
IMAGES/FLASH

Quadrant Four

Here is that fourth Quadrant in a similar state of finish/unfinish. I need to look at the finer details on all 4 of the Quadrants, such as architectural finishes, lamp and kiosk positions, landscaping, and more people and furniture. Once I have the forms down, I'll rescan the drawings and move to working digitally. There, I will colorize the images.

After that, I'd like to work on some fairly quick interior studies. By then we'll have gotten more feedback from some of our potential users.
So send us that feedback! :)

New Quadrants

I've worked on detailed drawings for three quadrants. Each needs a bit more work before it is colorized, but they are close.
The last one is The Arb Quadrant.