Wolverine Island: Design and Construction by N Formation Design
Intro
In March 2007, Ted Hanss from the enabling technologies department of the University of Michigan Medical School approached N Formation Design to design and build Wolverine Island, a presence in the virtual world of Second Life.
Second Life
Second Life is a virtual online world where 3D people or "avatars" walk, fly, and teleport from place to place, engaging with other avatars. Each avatar is driven by a real person that is logged into the world using Second Life software. People can log-in almost anywhere in the world. Much like the "massive-multiplayer online" games of World of Warcraft and EverQuest, Second Life allows people to build, collaborate, buy, sell, and trade virtual goods. Unlike these worlds, Second Life is not a game. It is a neutral space for a wide range of 3D collaborations between people that are vast distances away from one another. Wolverine Island needed to be a space that facilitated collaboration primarily for the purpose of education and research.
Needs
The island was to serve many of the needs that the real life campus provides. Initially, N Formation Design was given a list by Ted Hanss with the kinds of buildings that the University required to achieve this. These buildings needed to house training simulations, lectures, admissions, library and museum resources, meetings, and content creation. Included on Ted's list were landmarks such as sculptures, a tower, and landscaping. Ted's list was grouped into five main parcels: a Welcome Center or "iDiag", a Public Quarter, a Private Quarter, an Arboretum, and a Sandbox Quarter.
General Design
N Formation Design prides itself on a practical, yet creative approach. When we started designing, we had to identify both the limiting and beneficial factors of architecture in Second Life, many of which are very different from the traditional point of view on this subject. In real life, there is gravity, rain, and seasons. In Second Life, gravity can be overcome, and the weather is always clear. But a strange constraint of Second Life is the way that your point-of-view floats just above and behind your avatar. Navigating into tight spaces can cause strange things to happen to this point-of-view. These and other factors all meant that we required a very different kind of architecture on Wolverine Island.
So how did we solve these issues? Everyone agreed that the buildings and structures should have a very open, pavillion-like feeling, similar to the NMC campus in Second Life. Their designs are better than most of the "user-generated" content that is found in Second Life. But they still have a good deal of enclosed and overly-complicated spaces. We wanted to keep things open and simple unless absolutely necessary to a particular need, but the NMC campus provided a good start.
Design Principles
There were several design principles that came out of our initial research and planning:
1. Diversity Rules: The University is famous for it's stance on diversity and N Formation Design felt the same way about the Wolverine Island space. We wanted to create a range of buildings and spaces that bridged real life and Second Life. Some buildings look very traditional, some not so traditional, and some do not look like buildings at all.
2. It's Information in 3D too: Just as the 2D presence of a website requires good information design, so does a 3D presence. Users should have a clear and recognizable path to whatever information they are seeking and be able to process and understand it without too much interference.
3. Image is Everything: Customizable avatars make it easy to be uniquely recognizable in a crowd or from a distance. We wanted to open-up as many views as possible to allow people to recognize friends and colleagues. But avatars aren't the only thing that need to be seen. We focused on creating landmarks and views that are just as distinct from one another as any two avatars. Memorable views facilitate navigation and make the whole island more memorable.
4. People are Insects: When people can buzz around like bees, the access points to a building and a social space change drastically. Architecture needs to change to accommodate this.
5. Why Roofs?: With no rain or need for "shelter" a roof only needs to exist if it is the bottom of another floor. Creating multiple floors can make more space for everyone, but a roof for roof's sake is silly
6. Density is Precious: While density is vital for creating a lively and dynamic sense of place, it can only be utilized to a certain extent due to the processing capacity of the Second Life servers and the user's machine. We looked to strike a balance between these.
These main principles drove the design philosophy of Wolverine Island.
Welcome Center
The Welcome Center or "iDiag" is like the home page of the island. When a visitor first teleports to there, they find themselves exactly where they would expect to, in the center. In this space, we created an area that is like Michigan's real-life "Diag". It is simultaneously open and distinct. It provides views onto all four quarters of the island. This view is a "menu" of sorts. Immediately, they are faced with what they would find on the home page of a website: four main access points to the island (the four corners), a literal menu (a map), and a preview of what they will find in the site (the view).
By clicking on points of the iDiag map, a visitor is teleported to a number of major locations. Or, if they want to walk, the buildings that are adjacent to the iDiag are the Admissions Building and the Lounge. New visitors could visit Admissions to get general information, and the Lounge would be a good social place for someone to meet you if you have never been to the island. But experienced faculty, students, and staff might just fly to where they need to go.
Admissions is colored Blue and Maize to draw people's attention to its school spirit. It will be like an information center about Michigan in Second Life. There are three floors. A desk on the second floor could be staffed by someone from the real-life admissions office during particular hours. They could talk about the school and the island or even give tours. When a staffer is not available, the other two floors could provide supplementary information to visitors. The bottom floor would be dedicated to information about the real-life school in the form of posters and downloadable content. The top floor has a great view, and should have a panorama of the island with the names of buildings and information about their uses. 'Ghosted' windows provide easy access to the building for those who enjoy flying and an elevator stops at all three floors for those who would rather not.
The Lounge is a mixed-use space for small and large gatherings of a more conversational and informal nature. Every part of the roof and front window are completely permeable so that people can enter and exit from the top and the front unobstructed. It only has two solid walls on either side. They give a bit of shelter from the flow of the in and out activity.
Below the Lounge is a sort of Nightclub. The most popular social activity of Second Life residents is dancing. Some think it is because of the social benefits of dancing. Whatever the reason, we have created a space for this due mostly in part to its popularity. Clubs draw crowds in Second Life. This club has cool views, interesting seating, and decorations. It also has a screen for streaming media. It is visible only to the Sandbox area and the Park area, as to not distract the more serious side of the island.
Public Quarter
One of the things that makes an urban setting a vital place is space that is shared with the public. The same is true in Second Life. The southwest portion of the island is a space that is dedicated to public and institutional use. There are several structures in this quarter that will house different public needs: an amphitheater, a gallery, a library, a museum, and an assortment of gathering spaces.
The public Amphitheater complex is easily recognized by it's four black pillars. When approached from the iDiag, the wolverine sculpture in the center draws a visitor's attention. Once the visitor reaches the sculpture, they find themselves on an elevated platform. Set into the platform is the ampitheater stage and seats. The seats are located around all four sides of the stage to accommodate a large audience. Most often, a screen takes the place of one quarter of the seating. When a visitor sits in each seat, a script shifts their point-of-view to encompass the whole amphitheater, including the other seats.
Below the amphitheater is an outward-facing octagonal Gallery that can hold eight large images or any number of small images. The space around the gallery would also be ideal for three-dimensional exhibition pieces. Spaces on the sides of the stairs can also be used for public postings that are related to events, groups, etc.
One bridge leading from the amphitheater platform takes visitors to the Medical History Museum. This structure is based on the Michigan Union, the Michigan League, and some of the other older buildings on the Ann Arbor Campus. It provides a good deal of space for displaying virtual artifacts connected to medical history. There are four floors, three with large interior spaces and one with an open-air balcony. We tried to balance the wall-to-window ratio. Consequently, images displayed here will be complimented by views of the island campus. Elevator buttons in the shape of arrows provide automated travel from floor to floor.
Opposite to the Medical History Museum is the Public Library. It's open and elegant DNA-like structure defies the laws of gravity and underscores the island's focus on the Life Sciences. For now, the building remains a blank slate that can be filled as the University's library professionals determine the best use for this space. It's openness was informed by consultation with Jane Bloomenthal.
Adjacent to the Gallery is the Bistro. The restaurant Angelo's is a very popular feature of the Ann Arbor UMMS campus area, so we wanted to provide a space that had some similarities to it. It is a small space, but it serves as an easy location to remember and find for informal meetings and bumping into people. It's wide-open windows allow anyone to see who's there and gives its visitors a great view of the island. Unlike the peripheral gathering spaces that are located around the Public Quarter, this gathering area invites cross-overs between academic discussions and informal meetings. But overall, the spirit of the Public Quarter is sharing, cross-pollination, and collaboration.
Private Quarter
Wolverine Island also needed private space for classes and teaching in a more controlled environment. In the Private Quarter we created structures that are specially tailored to this: the Simulation Building, the Bouquet, and an amphitheater. While to this space access is restricted, it is still visible to the Public and Sandbox Quarters. We decided to embrace this visibility by showing-off the cool things that are happening, without allowing just anyone to come and interrupt the process. This can provide excellent PR for the work that is being done and engage more students and faculty in the Second Life experience.
The Simulation Building is the best example of simultaneous privacy and visibility. The walls of the building are transparent on the outside and solid from the inside. In this way, training and research simulations can be observed without any interruption. The broad side of the building faces the Public Quarter. Although this is much like an interrogation room, the University has nothing to hide in these structures. Anyone using the space must be aware that they might be watched. This can potentially increase the seriousness of simulations. At the same time, users can focus on what they are doing without being distracted by the arrival of some strange avatar.
The specifications of the Simulation Building changed in a few ways once the construction began. Firstly, we changed the ceiling heights from 6m to 8m (6 was cramped and 10 was too cavernous). Because of this and the number of prims, we decided to make 5 floors instead of 6. The bottom floor has numbered buttons to teleport users to each floor and the other floors have corresponding buttons to return to the bottom. We also decided to create an observation deck that surrounds each floor, and we made the walls 1.5m thick to prevent the avatar names of observers from being visible on the interior. The space inside is like a stage and can have the interior of any type of room built within it. All-in-all the Simulation Building is a new development in the history of medical theater.
Because Second Life allows so much architectural freedom, we thought that we should create a structure that could only be built in Second Life. This is where the Bouquet came from. From the very beginning, we knew that we wanted something that was organic like a tree or a bunch of flowers. Visitors to the structure would fly around to each pod like insects pollenating flowers. A bouquet is also a sign of hope in a hospital setting.
A series of drawings followed that experimented with a number of forms. The tricky part was to defy gravity without making the structure feel impossible. Eventually the free-wheeling curves and shapes of the Bouquet came into being. Each pod of the Bouquet is like a meeting room, complete with a screen and seats. By clicking on a seat a user's point-of-view is focused to include the screen. A scripted map at the base of the Bouquet allows users to teleport to any pod,according to a color code. This color code also allows groups to make definitive statements like, "We will meet at the white pod at 3pm."
The Private Amphitheater follows the theme of privacy and visibility. While still visible to the Public areas of the island that a meeting is occurring, they can occur without an extra crowd and the content of the meeting remains private. If anything, it provides one more gathering space that has a different level of privacy depending on the user's needs. The ampitheater uses 'poseballs,' a Second Life convention, that allow users to sit with a pose appropriate for the seating and an orientation towards the stage.
Aside from a few extra terrestrial gathering spaces in the Private Quarter, the only other feature is the helicopter. Created in the spirit of Michigan's Survival Flight, this helicopter helps to be another reminder of Wolverine Island's connection to the real-life campus in Ann Arbor.
Sandbox Quarter
Sandboxes are a common feature in Second Life. They underscore and support the importance of user generated content in virtual worlds. The same is true on Wolverine Island. Often, sandboxes are large open areas that resemble the desert. We wanted to change this trend for several reasons. The main reason is interaction. The desert does not have hospitable connotations. Also, in the desert people tend to build as far away as possible from other people. So instead of making another wide-open, homogeneous space, we created building platforms. Each platform allows a builder or group of builders to have their own area. Builders are also more likely to build near one another because there are clear boundaries to the space they are working in. By being nearer to one another, builders are more likely to communicate and potentially help one another. Each platform also has a grid for the more technical building projects. Platforms could be signed-out or open to the public depending on current needs and demands.
The Arboretum Quarter
The fourth and final section of Wolverine Island is an arboretum or park. The park is populated by pathways, trees, a tower, sculpture park, and gathering spaces. The park is based on a few memorable features of the Ann Arbor Campus. One is the Bell Tower and the other is the Arb. Much like the Bouquet, we wanted the new tower to have properties unique to Second Life. So the new Sky Tower floats above it's base and is mostly permeable. The platform and Bells at the top advertise the structure's origins and the clock on the face serves a practical time-keeping feature. Eventually, the tower could have bells play every hour on the hour, or tunes that play when you get close enough to the bells. And the sculpture park will eventually house permanent or temporary models. These models could run the gamut from artistic to technical visualization.
Conclusion
Throughout Wolverine Island, bridges, pathways, and views draw visitors easily from location to location. Open structures allow a greater understanding of what is happening inside as well as across the island. The easy access to buildings and their exteriors from any angle or elevation smoothes-out some of the navigation problems encountered in Second Life, and key points of interest create convivial crossovers between intersections. The design principles that we outlined in the beginning guided our approach to each detail. All-in-all, the close attention to both functional and aesthetic concerns makes Wolverine Island a pleasurable and memorable place to commune, collaborate, and learn.
