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.