Author Archive

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

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.

With the network effects of the digital age, combined with the principles of non-exclusive, ‘copyleft’ licensing, the world is starting to see the beginnings of a more decentralized method of production—a method producing a surge in innovation and creativity not seen since the advent of the industrial revolution. Projects such as Wikipedia and open-source software are examples of how a loose and decentralized group of individuals can come together in a more bottom-up fashion and create something greater than the sum of its parts. Recently, it has been demonstrated through companies such as Crowdspirit (http://www.crowdspirit.com) that this more ‘open source’ method of production is not just limited to information goods, but can be applied to physical products as well.

How can these more decentralized approaches be harnessed to improve the quality of architecture and urban planning throughout the world?

Last month, Jon Brouchoud and myself (Ryan Schultz) gave a presentation at the annual convention of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), which tried in part, to shed some light on how virtual worlds might provide the platfrom for a more decentralized approach to architecture in the future.

The presentation was broken down into two sections. The first Slideshare gives a quick overview of some of the more significant architectural projects currently going on in the Second Life.

The second Slideshare outlines a broader perspective—trying to answer ‘why’ these virtual worlds will become more important for architects in the future.

As is always the case when trying to paint a picture of the future, there’s some level of speculation here, but as Jamais Cascio says “with enough minds, all tomorrows are visible.” So please, if you see another storyline emerging, let us know what you think.

Part One:

Part Two:

(Update: If importing 3D models in Second Life is important to you, please vote for this issue on Second Life’s Issue Tracker: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2634.  You’ll need to login with your SL name and password first)

I’ve been using Second Life for a number of years now to run experiments, through our ‘Studio Wikitecture’ group, to see if a Metaverse, such as SL might one day act as the platform for collective intelligence in architecture and urban planning. I’m also an active member of the ‘RL Architects in SL’ group. As you can imagine, most of the members that compose these two groups are architects. What I have found, participating in these groups over the last year or so is that new members are always excited about using Second Life as either a collaborative tool or as a platform to exhibit their work. Unfortunately, however, their interest soon wanes when they find out there’s no easy way to import in models from third party programs. I realize there’s a number of grass-roots initiatives out there that have developed rough and crude ways to import from the following:

Blender
Sketchup
Max
Maya

Although, I give my utmost respect to the programmers that have developed these projects, to say they are crude, is to pay them a compliment. What invariably happens is that after sharing these links with the many people that ask, they come back (if they come back at all) even more confused and frustrated having labored through the elaborate and evolved process of copying and pasting pieces of code back and forth between one program and the other. The process is about as easy as painting with rice grains.

Having had a number of conversations over the year with people about this, I can say with confidence, that SL’s lack of portability is the number one hurdle for our demographic and the main reason why many people never come back. Although speculation, I would imagine this is a major hurdle for other groups as well.

What I don’t really understand is why this issue is not pushed more by the SL community at large. I have noticed there were a number of issues posted on SL’s Issue Tracker that call for portability of a number of various file types, such as .OBJ, .3DM, .3DS, .DXF, & .DAE.

What I don’t really understand is why, firstly, the overall SL community is not voting on this en masse and secondly, why have some of these grass-roots initiatives outlined above, just withered on the vine? Some of these projects are over two years old, with no sign of life or continued evolution since they were first posted.

Having been in the middle of this conversation for awhile, it seems the standard responses usually involve two factors: technology and/or SL’s economy—Technology, from the aspect that it’s currently still too difficult to do and economically, from the aspect that the sudden influx of new models would dilute the value of existing in-world creations, resulting in a negative impact on SL’s economy. Although I’m sure there are more reasons, these seem to be at the forefront of the discussion.

What confuses me, from my perspective anyways, is that these reasons still don’t seem plausible to me and I’m found wondering if I’m missing a valuable part of the equation.

First, although I have a limited background in programming, it appears from the existence of these grass roots projects, that portability is indeed obtainable. Having dabbled a little with each project above, I realize the process is laborious—cutting and pasting code from one program to the other.

I also realize that most of these conversion programs drastically simplify the form when imported into SL, such as textures being stripped off, and meshes and certain objects such as cylinders and sphere’s being simplified down to plain ‘box’ prims in SL. Although these are indeed hurdles, the technology is currently there to do this on a very limited basis.

What I don’t understand, is why these projects haven’t evolved into a more user-friendly format after the years they have been in place. This is just a lack of user-interface design verses a lack of back-end programming. Even though they are crude and might only import texture striped SL boxes in some cases, i know that I, as well has a horde of others, would still jump at the chance to have access to a tool like this and in most cases would actually pay good money for such a thing.

On to the economic end of the argument. I guess I can see on the surface, why a number of residences might be fearful of a world where seamless importing and exporting becomes the norm. I would imagine their argument springs from the fear that they either think their creations would be diluted by all these new models or that their creations could easily be exported and in turn imported, further diluting their value. I think these are legitimate concerns, but are there not ways of regulating this? Could you not add an additional layer of modifications rights that would give the owner of the in-world object the choice on whether they allowed subsequent owners to export out their creations?

From the importing perspective, yes, I’m sure such functionality would initially effect the market. The problem is however, that in the long run, the longer SL holds out on this functionality, the more negatively it will impact the economy, that is, when they finally do implement it. I’m not an economist, but I would imagine this is the same phenomenon you see when age old tariffs are removed and the economy in which they were trying to protect in the first place, finds itself unprepared to compete in the more innovative and efficient economy that was growing up all around them the whole time.

The assumption here, of course, is that they will do this eventually. The reason being, I believe, is that they will be forced to from market pressures from other virtual worlds offering portability as standard service and perhaps. In the end, perhaps this is exactly the reason why SL hasn’t offered this service yet. There’s no real viable competitor yet.

Although part of the reason for writing this post is to rant a little, my main objective is to start a conversation around why you don’t think portability has become common place for the end-user by now. I just wanted to share my confusion with everyone and see if there are others that are either just as confused, or perhaps have a more nuanced answer to this problem.

And by all means, if this too is a thorn in your side, please place your vote on Second Life’s Issue Tracker. Pick your poison. .OBJ, .3DM, .3DS, .DXF, & .DAE. Voting is easy, just login in first.

And if you’re a developer, just know that I’ll be the first to put my order in and I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone. The market seems to be begging for it.

If you have any questions on how to operate the ‘wiki-tree’ interface, we will be in-world at the following times to answer any questions you might have.   We will be in voice, since it’s a little easier conveying the ins and outs of the system that way.

1st one: Sunday, Nov. 11th @ 10am PST
2nd one: Tuesday, Nov. 13th @ 10am PST

…and if you’re having any problems logging onto the www.studiowikitecture.com site, let Keystone Bouchard or Theory Shaw know.

Lunch will be provided.

Thanks to all that have been so patient over the last couple weeks while we worked out some of the major kinks.

Can mass collaboration and collective intelligence improve the quality of architecture and urban planning?

We are happy to announce that, Studio Wikitecture will continue to try to tease out this question, via it’s 3rd Wikitecture experiment kicking off officially on Nov. 7th. To accommodate those in different time zones, there will be two different times: Wednesday, Nov. 7th @ 9:00am and 6:30pm PST/SLT.

(post Nov. 7th: Here’s a link to the transcript of that of kick-off meeting. It goes into a more extensive step by step on how to operate the in-world interface: http://studiowikitecture.wikidot.com/kickoffmeeting)

The project on which this experiment will center around will be the competition recently announced by the Open Architecture Network. Competition sites range from a medical facility in rural Nepal, a media lab and library in the slums of Nairobi, or a fair trade chocolate factory in Ecuadorian Amazon.

Since the OAN is an “open-source community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design”, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to submit an entry for this competition that is, in turn, designed and composed in the same collaborative and open-source fashion.

We would be happy for you to join the next experiment and help us design this collaborative competition entry. You don’t need any experience in architecture, engineering or construction to participate. We actually believe the more diverse the pool of contributors, the better. You will need, if you don’t already, a Second Life account. Registering is easy.

Once you have downloaded the Second Life application, registered an account and log in, press the ’search’ key on the bottom of your screen (it looks like this: ). Look for the group ‘Studio Wikitecture’ and click ‘join.’ Enrollment is open to all.

After you have joined, click the following link for a ‘teleport’ to the Wikitecture 3.0 Parcel (link), which was generously donated by arcspace.com. Once there, ‘touch’ the base of the ‘wiki-tree’ interface, which looks like the following:…

…

to get the password for the website.

For the login: use your full ‘Second Life’ name.

If you have an problems, don’t hesitate to IM either Keystone Bouchard or Theory Shaw in-world and we’ll come by and help you.

A Brief Overview of the evolving technology behind Wikitecture 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0

We are not only excited about the project, but the new website and in-world interface (not operational, until nov. 7th) that will allow everyone to better communicate and collaborate with each other over the duration of the project’s two month time frame. Along with the following description, this video, provides a nice overview of the technology behind Wikitecture 3.0 as well.

Over the last year, we have been using the virtual world of Second Life as a platform for conducting ‘Wikitecture’ experiments to work out the procedures and protocols necessary to harness a group’s collective intelligence in designing architecture. We have already conducted 2 experiments within Second Life to explore this idea of ‘open source architecture’. The videos of their final form can be found here: 1.0 & 2.0. The following gives a brief overview of the evolving functionality behind Wikitecture 1.0, 2.0, & 3.0.

1.0

Wikitecture 1.0 was not really a true Wiki in the sense that contributors could not modify or delete the contributions of others. What resulted, although interesting in its own right, was an amalgamation of ‘stuff’ with not no overall coherency or unity - a result we expected.

2.0

In the 2nd experiment, we asked contributing members to enable full-permissions on every object they added. This new protocol enabled designers to add/modify/delete each other’s designs. In addition, we set up a Flickr Account that allowed contributors to upload descriptive snapshots of their designs and leave feedback as well. With Wikitecture 2.0, we also introduced an archiving system, where members, through community consensus, were able to roll-back the ‘live’ design to previously saved iterations. Although this system was still rudimentary, the resultant design was far more unified and coherent than Wikitecture 1.0.

3.0

For our 3rd experiment, however, we have continued to try and improve upon this underlying technology. In teaming up with i3D inc., experts in creating virtual applications that cross the 2D/3D divide, we have developed both an in-world interface (’wiki-tree’) and external website that continually communicate with each other. From the in-world perspective, contributors are able to archive their particular design into an abstract ‘leaf’ within a 3-dimensional ‘tree canopy’. As this canopy grows, the branching network of ‘leaves’ communicates to other designers, how related all the different designs are to each other.

image of the ‘leaf canopy’. Although not always the case, the general rule will typically apply: one ‘archive leaf’ = one design iteration = one contributor.

In addition, to fully communicate their vision and rationale behind their designs, this interface will allow contributors to take snapshots of their designs and, combined with descriptive commentary, upload them to the external website.

Since there will be multiple designs iterations within the ‘tree canopy’ and only a limited amount of land, the ‘wiki-tree’ interface, by touching the leaves, will allow members to ‘rez’ out the designs, one by one, onto the viewing parcel. Once rezzed out, viewers are then able to immerse themselves, 3-dimensional, in the design. In addition, to augment the experience of actually occupying the space, the three screens in the viewing kiosk near the ‘wiki-tree’ will allow users to cycle through the snapshots and comments associated with the active design on the viewing parcel as well. This viewing kiosk will become especially helpful for those who want to communicate their designs informally with a smaller group of individuals.

The ‘wiki-tree’ allows the community, in turn, to vote and comment on their fellow contributor’s designs.

Other than cycling and rezzing out the individual designs from the ‘archiving leaves’, The website component will allow users all the same functionality as the in-world interface. In other words, through the website, members can vote and add comments, as well as upload images they would like to associate with their saved designs.

What if this collaboratively designed entry actually wins this OAN competition? How will the reward money actually be divvied up amongst the contributors? If you worked on the last Wikitecture experiment, we will be using the same system whereby we ask all the contributors to assess what percentage they feel they have contributed to the design as well as what percentage they feel others have contributed. The general idea being, that when everyone’s assessment of each other is averaged out, however subjective it may be, a pretty fair judgment is made to how much (compensation, ownership, IP rights, etc) should be dolled out to each contributor. If, in the event, Studio Wikitecture’s entry wins the competition, we will distribute the winnings in this manner.

Although this system of assessment is not perfect, we feel it’s a start. This is one component of the experiment we feel will need to be massaged here and there as we go forward and would love your input to help improve it. Throughout the next two months of designing and assessing, if you have an idea on how to improve either this contribution assessment procedure, or any other functionality for that matter, please let us know. We have set up a forum for such discussion: Feedback & F.A.Q.

Although, this collaborative platform is light years beyond what was used for the 2nd experiment, please be aware that it’s still somewhere between alpha and the prepubescence beta stage of development—we will most likely encounter our fair share of bugs.

Although running at a base level right now, certain features will not be available until Nov. 7th.

image of the ‘trunk’ of the ‘wiki-tree’ interface.

Although not slated to be complete until the end of October, I thought I’d share with the ‘Studio Wikitecture’ community some of the functionality that is projected for the website as well as the Second Life in-world interface that will be used for the next Wikitecture experiment.

• The main in-world component will include what we are calling a ‘Wikitecture Tree’. Although its final form will most likely change in the final version, the following video will give you a rough sense of the overarching concept.

• The general idea is that this ‘Wikitecture Tree’ will hover over the parcel that will house the evolving OAN design. Each ‘leaf’ contains the prims or objects of a single design iteration contributed by one person in the community.

• The proximity of one ‘leaf’ to the next indicates that the designs contained within, are very similar derivatives of each other. The further away a ‘leaf’ is from another, indicates either a major change in the design direction or an entirely new direction all together. The animated link between two ‘leaves’ indicates the direction the designs were derived from one another.

• Also, the color of the ‘leafy boxes’ represents the number of votes the community has given the design contained with the leaf. For example, the more green a leaf, the more votes, yellow has less, and red, the least number. The top ranked design at any one time will be called ‘the trunk’ and will take on, you guessed it, a bark texture. In order that the tree doesn’t get too elaborately huge, there will be a point where the tree will prune itself of the lowest ranked designs.

• The main interface (not shown in the video) of this ‘Wikitecture Tree’ will allow you to either touch a specific ‘leaf’ and have the leaf’s design “rezzed” or materialized onto the Second Life land parcel or you will be able to cycle through the various ‘leaves’, rezzing the designs onto the parcel by either vote count or date added.

• If, as you are cycling through the various designs, come across one you like or dislike, the interface will allow you to place either a positive or negative vote toward the design.

• In addition the interface will allow you to leave textual comments in the way of threaded discussions that will sent to the SW website. You will also be able to take snapshots of specific areas of the design and, with comments, send them to the website as well.

• So if after cycling through the designs, you see one you would like to modify, you can either take the prims/objects of that design into your inventory to work on off site (such as a sandbox), or simply proceed with the changes you would like to make to the design directly on the Wikitecture parcel itself.

• …and finally when you are done with your modification of the design, the Wikitecture tree will allow you to save your new design iteration inside a newly created leaf and include some textual comments explaining your design as well.

• So the big question: What if our collaboratively designed entry actually wins this OAN competition? How will the reward money actually be divvied up amongst the contributors? Although the system we have in mind is not perfect, we feel it’s a start. This is one component of the experiment we feel will need to be massaged here and there as we go forward and would love your input to help improve it. If you worked on the last Wikitecture experiment, we will be using the same system where by we ask all the contributors to assess what percentage they feel they have contributed to the design as well as what percentage they feel others have contributed. The general idea being, that when everyone’s assessment of each other is averaged out, however subjective it may be, a pretty fair judgment is made to how much (compensation, ownership, IP rights, etc) should be dolled out to each contributor.

• This pdf illustrates the spreadsheet we used to assess everyone’s contribution in the last experiment. Although we have some potential improvements on this assessment system, for the sake of simplicity, we will start with the same system for this experiment as well. We plan on including a forum on the new website for everyone to discuss not only this contribution analysis system, but any other improvements you might have in mind for future experiments as well.

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!

After tallying the results, the consensus for the best time to meet is: Tuesday, September 25th @ 9:00am PST/SLT. Here is the slurl link to the ‘Studio Wikitecture’ parcel in Second Life.

Although kick-off is not until Oct. 15th, we wanted to hold an early meeting to get a gauge who would like to participate as well as share some improved features projected for the new website and inworld voting/commenting system. In addition, we would like to hear your thoughts on which of the three ‘Open Architecture Network’ challenges we should pursue.

We are excited that the project the 3rd Wikitecture experiment will center around will be the competition recently announced by the ‘Open Architecture Network’. The ‘AMD Open Architecture Challenge’ is an open, international design competition. Its aim is to develop solutions for building sustainable, multi-purpose, low-cost technology facilities for those who need them most.

They have three challenges on which to choose from—a project based in South American, Africa, or Asia. We would like for the next meeting to get your opinion on which of the three we should pursue as a collaborative entry. The following are links to the specific competition briefs.

the South America Challenge…
the Africa Challenge…
the Asia Challenge…
general information about the OAN Challenge…

Since the OAN is an “open-source community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design”, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to submit an entry for the competition that is, in turn, designed and composed in the same collaborative and open-source fashion OAN is known for.

See you there.

What is ‘Studio Wikitecture’ Group in Second Life………………………………………………….

Studio Wikitecture is a ‘Second Life’ group composed of a diverse spectrum of individuals interested in exploring the potential of applying an Open Source paradigm to the design and production of both real and virtual architecture and urban planning.

What we’ve been doing………………………………………………………………

We have over the last 10 months been conducting Wikitecture experiments within Second Life to tease out the exact procedures and protocols one would need within a Metaverse to harness and aggregate a group’s collective intelligence in creating an architecturally noteworthy design.

Please go to this Flickr site to see the evolving snap shots from our last experiment…

Here’s a link to the program and protocol for this experiment as well…

In addition, here are some excerpts from a Manifesto written by Dennis Kaspori that outlines some of the salient points around an open-source approach to architecture.

Would you like to participate in the AMD Open Architecture Challenge on a global team of qualified and talented architects, designers and engineers? Studio Wikitecture invites you to just that.

In keeping with the spirit of the Open Architecture Network’s goal of ‘improving the living standards through collaborative design,’ we will be employing the next generation Wikitecture process in order to more fully enable true 3D collaboration by community members from around the world. In much the same way Wikipedia enables multiple contributors to collaborate on content creation, the Wikitecture process gives community members an opportunity to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and to vote on the success or failure of proposed modifications.

Through a series of ongoing experiments during the past several months, the Wikitecture process has been evolving based on community participation and feedback. With this input, Theory Shaw has developed the ‘Wikitecture Tree’ concept, and we’ve hired the clever folks at i3Dnow to build it for us, which will include both inworld and web-based functionality. We hope to roll out this new platform just in time to get started on a collaborative Wikitecture competition entry for the AMD Open Architecture challenge.

The Wikitecture process currently uses the free to use, free to access virtual reality platform of Second Life to enable multiple contributors to share ideas and collaborate on design concepts.

If you are interested in participating, you’ll need to do the following:

1.) Download and install the Second Life client at SecondLife.com

2.) Complete the orientation course to help familiarize yourself with navigation, etc.

3.) Click on the ‘Search’ button on the bottom of your screen. With the ‘All’ tab highlighted, search for either ‘Keystone Bouchard’ or ”Theory Shaw’ - the organizers of the Wikitecture project. Click on their name, and you’ll see an ‘Instant Message’ button in their profile. Send either of us a message, and we will get back to you shortly with more details on how you can join the community.

4.) By clicking on the ‘Map’ button and searching for Architecture Island, you will be able to teleport directly into the site location, and migth even run into other members of the in-world community who can help with any questions you may have.

Our official launch meeting will be September 25th @ 9 am PST/SLT on the Studio Wikitecture parcel in Second Life.  Click here for the slurl location.  - the event time will be determined by community consensus. Please send your vote to Keystone Bouchard in-world, or to jbrouchoud@gmail.com

We hope to see you there!

To join our project page on OAN, visit HERE.

To learn more about the architecture and design community in Second Life, visit The Arch blog

To see a video of Cameron Sinclair’s event in Second Life, featuring the Open Architecture Network’s Porchdog design, visit This YouTube site

To see the construction of the Porchdog in Second Life, visit: This YouTube site

I’ve read Dennis Kaspori’s essay A Communism of Ideas: Towards an Architectural Open Source Practice a few years back, and having just recently come across it again in What People Want: Populism in Architecture and Design, I realized it’s probably one of the better manifestos out there in calling for an open-source approach to architecture. In an effort to disseminate these ideas further I’ve posted a few pertinent quotes. I just wish the word ‘Communism’ wasn’t in the title due to its pejorative connotation. A ‘Community’ or ‘Communion of Ideas’ would have been a little more palatable perhaps.

“Examples of collaborative practices can be found in art and in software engineering. They offer an alternative model in which innovation is achieved through the active participation of all parties. Ideas and products are no longer developed in a closed production process organized around the autonomy of the artist or the company, but evolve out of the pragmatism of usage. That is the motor of innovation.”

“The movement has its origins in use. David Garcia: ‘The digital revolution thoroughly upset prevailing Western ideas about intellectual property. Thanks to the Internet there is an extensive network in which ideas are not so much protected by copyright as developed collectively. Ownership is not what counts, but use.”

“In short, open source requires a shake-up of established ways of thinking and a different interpretation, both socially and economically, of the concept of innovation. The existing (cathedral) model with the autonomous genius of the chief designer at the top of a strict hierarchy is ‘closed’ and based on competition. That competition has proved to be an important generator of innovation, but also leads to enormous fragmentation. The bazaar model, on the other hand, is based on cooperation. It conforms to the network logic of an effective distribution of ideas, as a result of which these ideas can be tested in different situations and improved. It makes use of the ‘swarm intelligence’ of a large group of users and/or developers.”

“The fact is that the open-source process can also be an important stimulus for greater participation by residents in the spatial planning process. The only condition that needs to be met in order to produce an actively involved community is a reasonable promise: ‘It can be crude, buggy, incomplete and poorly documented. What it must not fail to do is convince potential co-developers that it can be evolved into something really neat in the foreseeable future.”

“Thus, open source provides an organization model for the collective development of solutions for spatial issues involving housing, mobility, greenspace, urban renewal and so on. These are all complex issues that presuppose an interdisciplinary approach; in fact they can only be solved with cooperation. Open source presupposes that these ideas are disclosed and made available to others, who in turn can improve on them. In this way, design changes from a one-off action into a kind of evolutionary process.”

“Open source would seem to be an attractive model for an architectural practice wishing to revive its pro-active role in spatial issues. Cooperation and the exchange of ideas give rise to a learning organization that is able to evolve by reacting alertly to change. This sounds easier than it is. As suggested earlier, the idea of a collaborative practice presupposes a complete reversal of the existing organizational model of a discipline that is very keen on its autonomy and the concept of copyright. The first step towards an open-source practice in architecture is to develop a broad-based awareness that cooperation and the opening up of architectural practice to input from outside are important requirements if an effective contribution is to be made to the ever-more complex spatial processes.”

Had a very revealing conversation with David Harrison, a PhD at Victoria University, about the prospects of potentially using Second Life as a tool for architectural collaboration in the very near future. His current PhD is entitled ‘Building Digital Bridges’, where he looking at “exploring the means of encouraging digital conversation and collaboration by insular organisations associated with the building during its lifecycle.” He’s chronicling his work among other insightful observations of how architects work across the digital divide on his blog: http://www.stress-free.co.nz/. I took the general stance that Second Life is poised, in my opinion, of being ‘the’ Metaverse in the future and the go to platform for architectural collaboration. He, however, differs and brings up some very salient points that i thought I’d share…

Ryan Schultz wrote:

 

I hear you. My fascination with SL is that more than any other burgeoning platform out there, it seems Second Life is in a better position to become the next 3D Web or Metaverse. The main reason being: The community. There’s just too much invested development from such a large and diverse community for them to flippantly jump ship to another platfrom. Even if there was a better platform out there, with better tools and interface, the community due to their entrenched economic interests, would go to the ends of the earth to try and figure out a way to make SL’s more user-friendly.

I would disagree with this presumption simply because online communities are very fickle until development of the underlying technology has plateaued.
Scalable 2D web technologies (like HTML/Javascript) have plateaued in their development and as a consequence the communities built around them are becoming entrenched and very large (e.g. MySpace, Facebook and Flickr).

In contrast the world of 3D is still developing at such a rate that the communities are relatively small and not deeply entrenched. For example the number of active users of SL is dwarfed by these 2D communities and small compared to gaming worlds such as World of Warcraft. Then there is the forthcoming release of Sony’s Playstation3 3D world which, even given its poor sales, will be bigger than Second Life in terms of potential users (i.e. every PS3 owner).

I can’t help but feel the online 3D market is at the same place as the 2D online world was between 1990 and 1995. Back then we had walled gardens like Compuserve, AOL and even Microsoft Network (which originally shipped with Windows 95). Whilst these communities had a lot of money behind them the rapid adoption of open HTML and HTTP concepts quickly usurped them. When this occurred participants were more than prepared to transfer or write off their investments in these old, established communities in order to be on the newer and more widely adopted one.

 

This is of course contingent on SL opening its server code. Furthermore, If SL was solely occupied by a mass of renegade amateurs, the likelihood of it becoming ‘the’ Metaverse would be lessened, but since there’s already an impressive list of corporations using the world, they themselves would be hard pressed to abandon ship even for a better alternative.

I haven’t seen any examples of big business investing serious money in SL. What I have seen is a lot of experimentation and jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of publicity. When big business is prepared to spend millions on SL development in the same manner in which they do with the Web then it becomes difficult to change. The day this happens within a 3D environment I think we can say its reaching some level of maturity.

 

They would of course die to leave if they could export their developments to a non-proprietary world that was compatible with Second Life. Which is only a matter of time, with the growing number of open source metaverses out there such as: Croquet, Open Source Metaverse Project, and Ogoglio project to name a few. So with this threat looming on the horizon, I feel SL has no other choice than to open source its code lest they loose their population. They will just have to figure out other ways to make money such as becoming a developer on their own platform and provide services similar to those provide by companies such as Millions of Us, Clear Ink or The Electric Sheep Company… or becoming ‘the’ lending institute.

Therein lies the problem for SL, for it to succeed as a technology/community it must eat its parents (Linden Labs). If Linden don’t let this happen it will no doubt wither and die on the vine, but if they do open it up they become a bit player in something that is now much larger than them.
Tim Berners-Lee and the others behind the Web weren’t driven by profit and as a consequence this decision was easy.
Unfortunately for Linden Labs and SL this decision isn’t so clear cut.

 

Even if Google, Microsoft, or Adobe came out with a platform similar to Second Life tomorrow, I feel those companies that have invested in Second Life would stay because the prospect of Second Life becoming an open platform is more attractive, and a better bet than a proprietary platform with a better user-interface (with no history of open source initiatives) that could potentially, one day, create a restrictive monopoly. Why are they there at all then if Second Life is still proprietary? For the same reason, people paid for the use of roads before there were public interstates. And like interstates, since so many diverse markets are using metaverses (like they did the internet) to expand their markets, it would be foul hearty to allow any one company to gain control.

Perhaps the most intelligent thing Steve Balmer has ever said is ‘Developers, Developers Developers!’.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643

Communities rely on their developer community, be it the people that write the software through to the users that take part within it.
Adobe and Microsoft aren’t in it to build the highways, they are in it to own the tools others use when making the highways.
Google on the other hand is in it to make the highways but they’ve illustrated in the past they are more than willing to give those highways away in order to own the billboards on the side of the road.

 

Back to your thesis, the reason there is not the level of conversation and collaboration between insular organizations in the building industry is the fact that they all don’t speak the same language so to speak—of which I know you are aware. I feel because the market expansion in so many diverse economic sectors would be improved with an open platform in 3-dimensional communication, the market as a whole, will eventual just bypass proprietary CAD/BIM software as it is currently being developed, and opt for a more open platform.

The users of CAD/BIM aren’t interested in ideas like open standards just like Joe/Jane Average doesn’t care or know about Net Neutrality.
Architects want to get buildings built and to do so they will use the tools that make it easiest for them to do this.
It then becomes a battle of user interfaces and in such a conflict the well established and proprietary CAD vendors hold a huge advantage.
Formats such as Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) are intended to enable open interoperability but it is a very complex industry and as a consequence its adoption rate is slow and the format complicated.

I’d argue that in the office productivity world the most important enabler of the OpenDocument format was not the establishment of the standard but Sun’s gamble to open source the StarOffice code-base. This made available to the open source community a set of user interfaces that could realistically compete with Microsoft Office. Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a similar event in the CAD/BIM industry for an open format to not only be established but taken seriously. Unfortunately the CAD/BIM industry does not yet have a company which has established a Microsoft-like monopoly and until that happens there is very little financial incentive for the existing vendors to undertake such a radical action.

 

I’m of the mindset promoted by Adam Smith that the more people gravitate toward those systems that allow for the expression of their own self-interest, the better we all are both socially and economically.

Nice, don’t know much about Adam Smith.

 

I think one of the more exciting indications of SL’s potential, is that people are still a little confused on what you can do with it—its use is still somewhat nebulous. Similar to how the uses of such disruptive technologies as the radio, telephone, and internet were not immediately known, SL’s potential is just beginning to be tapped. And similarly, if these technologies were proprietary and not open to the public commons, one could easily argue the level of innovation seen thus far would not be half of what it is today. I’m not ultimately saying that if the uses for a burgeoning technology are somewhat nebulous, they will automatically be a platform for innovation, but, I feel, the fact that millions of people have flocked to SL to explore it’s potential is a good sign that Second Life will become such a platform.

I would say a 3D Internet-based world is complimentary to existing technologies and services rather than disruptive.
Most of the discussion around environments such as SL are more to do with how (if it all) it can be used to assist with conventional processes rather than replace them. For example the most interesting things I’ve seen in SL are 2D Internet browser and video windows arranged in a 3D space. This isn’t disruptive but it does make you think how can the third dimension improve on an existing message.

The value of SL is not attributed so much to how useful the tool is, but more the fact that masses of people use it—the barrier for entry is low. Similar to the argument that Andrew Hinton uses in his slideshow ‘Architectures for Conversation’; of how AK47’s are more prolific than M-16’s because they are ‘Open’, ‘Inexpensive’, ‘Simple’ and ‘Close Enough’—so too does SL share these characteristics and the reason, I feel, people will use it as ‘the’ platform for innovation in the 3-dimensional world.

I disagree that Second Life is the AK47 of the 3D Internet world.
In fact I think one could argue it is the M4A1, a relative of the M16 used by the special forces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine#M4.2FM4A1

This is because:
Open - SL is currently proprietary and it is uncertain what an ‘open’ SL would look or behave like

Inexpensive - Virtual land costs real money in SL. In contrast the Web is theoretically free but of course there are attributed costs involved depending on your participation but these are distributed (e.g. domain name registration).

Simple - The user interface and the underlying data format is far from simple when compared to an Internet browser and HTML.

Close Enough - To what? The Web enables us to exchange textual (and now 2D visual data) easily. Due to its open, inexpensive and simple properties we have been able to build all sorts of interesting applications on top of it (e.g. search). I don’t think we have established the properties of a ubiquitous 3D environment to say anything is close enough just yet.

Anyways, as usual, I’ve spent way too much time on this reply. Would you mind if I posted this conversation on my blog? I feel other people might benefit from this dialog. The internet is a wonderful thing.

I don’t mind as I’ll probably reference back to it myself

David

 

—–Original Message—–
From: David Harrison
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 6:14 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Get in touch...] just introducing myself…

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the email and blog comments, but as you can see I’m a bit

slow when it comes to email as the business related stuff during the day

usually burns me out.

 

You might be a bit disappointed to learn I am not a fan of Second Life.

It maybe because I’ve play too much World of Warcraft but I think it is

more to do with the often self-manufactured fanfare that surrounds it

and Linden Labs.

 

Personally I think Second Life is going to be usurped by Adobe and

Microsoft on the Web when it comes to 3D environments on the Web.

Adobe is doing some really interesting things when it comes to Acrobat

3D and Apollo which suggests it won’t be long before we start to see 3D

concepts traditionally associated with Second Life begin to show their

heads in other places.

Likewise Microsoft and Autodesk are teaming up with the XPS/DWFx to

create 3D technologies that can be used in partnership with Silverlight

to do very similar things. This isn’t even taking into account Sony with

their Playstation3 digital world which will no doubt be followed by

Microsoft, probably leveraging some or all of the aforementioned

technologies.

Then of course there’s Google who seem to be doing their best to model

and photograph the real world to the extent that we will all be able to

experience it virtually in a manner very similar to Second Life. The

advantage they have with this approach is that people understand the

real world and can immediately associate themselves with its digital

equivalent.

 

So while Second Life is forging a trail I don’t believe it will be long

before it gets some serious, more solution specific competition from a

number of big players.

 

Open sourcing their server infrastructure would certainly help ensure

‘Second Life’ as a concept remained valid in a competitive world but how

Linden Labs would continue to make money if this would occur would be

difficult to say.

 

On the Second Life/collaboration front I don’t believe it would take

hold as the average person off the street doesn’t want to go through the

effort of signing up for a Second Life account, learning the UI and

navigating through the world just to checkout an architecture project.

From a real-time collaboration perspective products such as Adobe

Connect (formally Macromedia Breeze) are more relevant within the

industry because the technologies they are based on are ubiquitous, have

a broad installation base and everyone understands the PDF/Flash user

experience.

When you mix products like Connect with formats such as 3D PDF and DWF

you get a very powerful, real-time collaboration tool that business can

grasp much faster than Second Life.

 

Also just from a tools perspective Second Life is lacking a level of

deep interaction within CAD packages that would be needed to take hold

in a business environment. At the moment I would say its less of a

struggle to digitally collaborate using Google Earth as a

3D-collaboration medium than Second Life simply because it feels like

every CAD vendor is jumping over themselves to deliver a seamless

import/export plug-in for that platform.

 

So I am afraid to say you won’t find me on Second Life anytime soon.

That is not to say I don’t think 3D collaboration will not take off

sometime soon, I just feel the bigger vendors out there are going to do

a better job of providing what businesses want when compared to the

consumer-focused Linden Labs and their Second Life community.

 

Regards,

 

 

David

 

 

theoryshaw@yahoo.com wrote:

> Ryan Schultz sent a message using the contact form at

> http://www.stress-free.co.nz/contact.

>

> David, Love your blog. Considering the subject matter you cover in

> your blog,

> you might be interested in this ‘Wikitecture’ experiment we (RL

> Architects

> in Second Life) conducted in SL that is exploring how feasible a

> collaborative approach to architecture might be for the profession.

> http://studiowikitecture.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/wikitecture-20-designing-the-architecture-of-architectural-design-collaboration/

>

>

> Unfortunately, mostly due to a lack of monetary incentive I’m sure, we

> did not have many participants throughout it’s month long duration. We

> however are still hopeful that future experiments will garner further

> participation.

> I guess another reason I’m writing, is to ask if you’ve given any thought

> of using ‘Second Life’ as a platform for “encouraging digital

> conversation

> and collaboration by insular organisations associated with the building

> during its lifecycle”? Although the technology is quite rudimentary

> compared to the tools AEC professionals typically use, it is

> considered by

> many to be the burgeoning foundation for the 3-dimensional web. There is

> pretty strong speculation as well that SL plans to open source its server

> code in the near future. They have had their client(viewer) code open

> for

> quite some time now.

>

> Anyways, just thought I’d say hi and show my support. If you have an

> Avatar in SL, look me (Theory Shaw) up and I’ll give you a tour of the

> Wikitecture experiment. I’m also participating in this competition,

> hosted by, http://www.ctrlshift07.com/, of which you might be

> familiar. http://www.ctrlshift07.com/second-life/

>

> Regards, Ryan

>

“Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. Whenever a copyright is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble.” Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), circa 1906

“Good artists copy; great artists steal.” —Pablo Picasso

The benefit of an open approach to architectural design is that you can play off and improve the design of others, which in turn, one would hope, benefits the lives of all—as should be an architect’s ethical tenant. The standard ‘all rights reserved’ approach to licensing, however, limits this ability to create derivative works for the benefit of all. The creative commons, however, offers an alternative approach to IP rights that facilitates this idea of remixing the work of others—as described in the following quote from their website:

This process of generically giving permission in advance – use my content so long as you attribute me, or engage in non commercial use, or make no derivative works or share your improvements with the broader community – allows users upon seeing content labeled with the CC symbol to know exactly, at that instant, what right they have to reproduce, communicate, cut, paste, and remix.

The following describes each of the six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license. They are listed starting with the most accommodating type you can choose and ending with the most restrictive.

Attribution (by). Lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Attribution Share Alike (by-sa). Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd). Allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution Non-Commercial (by-nc). Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa). Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). The most restrictive of the six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

From my understanding, the various licensing options boil down to the following two scenarios: Someone can make a derivative work, make money commercially, and not pay you a thing or the opposite, someone can make a derivative work and neither of you make money commercially. There is of course the scenario, where both parties are able to benefit by signing a commercial licensing agreement, but this is usually after the fact. With this arrangement, you run the risk, however, that the original licensor will not want to come to a fair and balanced assessment of each other’s contribution. With this potential risk loaming in the future, you would be less likely to even start a derivative work in the first place—there’s less initial incentive. If this is a public project, the public would, in turn, loose the opportunity of having a superior design (judged on many fronts, not just aesthetically), for less. Do we really need to reinvent the wheel with every project? So in pursuing this commercial licensing agreement are we not back to the same cumbersome legal wrangling we were trying to avoid in the first place by creating the CC? Can there be a CC license that finds a middle ground where people are open to use other’s work, but all parties benefit monetarily, without the intervention of a cumbersome legal process?

What if, however, there was a New Licensing option—somewhere between ‘Attribution Non-commercial’ and ‘Attribution No Derivatives’—that stated that you are free to pursue commercial gain without consent, but if you use the derivative work to make money, the payout percentages to all parties is assessed by the ‘community’ and not left up to the lawyers to determine? Under this license, I would have a little more confidence using someone else work initially, knowing that if my derivative work does indeed make money, that there’s a better likelihood that the community, on average, will make a fairer assessment of each other contribution, than if left up to the biases of lawyers and other interested stakeholders.

What is the community in this case? Perhaps, initially this community is composed of only those involved in the project—the originator and those that modify the design. If, however, through this 1st phase, a unanimous vote is not achieved, assessment would be opened up to another tier of paid editors and arbiters to make the final evaluation. Since this group of editors, would in turn get a small percentage of the project’s revenue, there’s more incentive for the original parties to come to an agreement. Perhaps in order to insure that this group of editors, on average, doles out a fair and balanced assessment, there could be a system in place where the editors in turn are ranked by those they are arbitrating for—i.e., you are able to rank the ranker so to speak. So, in the end, only the editors with the best rankings are allowed to participate in this process. Through this you are in essence placing more faith in the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ to establish a quick and fair judgment, than you are in a traditional legal procedure.

I feel, if such a system of licensing were in place, people would be more apt at using someone else’s work from the very beginning, knowing that since the ‘community’ is establishing the percentage of authorship, they’d be more assured that everyone, in the end, would be granted a fair deal. I believe this method would not only allow good ideas to propagate themselves more prolifically in the world, through the continual process of refinement, they would also improve at a more exponential rate as well—a win-win scenario for all.

Imagine if you had a song, novel, or any piece of art for that matter that was already well liked by a majority of people.  Now imagine if everyone was free to modify this piece of work to improve it in their eyes.  What if people in turn were able to rank these derivative works of art?  What are the odds that the most popular spin-off from this ranking process would be a work of art better than the original?   If you believe, like I do, that we all benefit from a world where art is able to capture humanity’s true essence, than why, if this process does truly improve the end product, are we not embracing it as viable way to produce and refine art?   Now imagine, instead of a song, novel, or piece or art being the centerpiece of this process, you have the design and evolution of an entire city as the central focus.  Could we actually harness this collaborative filtering process to improve our built environment, perhaps even making it more sustainable?

Well, at a little more than half way through the month long experiment, the evolving building design is looking quite promising. I would like the thank all the contributors that have participated thus far.

I thought perhaps to make this Wikitecture Experiment less intimidating and to facilitate further contribution, it might be a good idea to boil down the extensive program and protocol to a few key points.

Key aspects of the wikitecture experiment:

Overall this experiment is set up to explore just how feasible a collaborative approach in design might be for the architectural profession. In this regard, we would like to invite anyone, with or without architecture experience, to contribute to the building’s design - please fell free to add, modify, or delete any aspect of the building you feel would improve the design—no matter how big or small.

Mod-rights:

Please, however, make sure your prims have the following permissions turned on so others may improve on your design as well:

• Set the ‘Group’ to ‘RL Architects in Second Life’

• Check on ‘Share with group’

• Check on ‘Modify’ and ‘Copy’ and ‘Resell/Give away’ under ‘Next owner can:’

Building Design Consensus:

Whether you’re a contributor or just someone that would like to comment on the design of the building, please take a snapshot(s) of the area you’d like explain or comment on and send it via email (jpg formatted), along with a little written blurb, to the following address: next00beyond@photos.flickr.com

Please go to the following Flickr website for a log of these ongoing comments: http://www.flickr.com/photos/studiowikitecture/

If, for instance, the community decides, through this forum, that a certain contribution has detracted from the overall design, the design can be rolled back to previously archived versions.

Archiving:

Although RLASL will periodically archive the project, for added assurance, please archive your contribution at the ‘Archiving Kiosk’ near the foot bridge. Archiving instructions are provided at the base of the Kiosk as well as at the following link.

To view a more in-depth write-up on this Wikitecture Experiment go to the following link: http://studiowikitecture.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/wikitecture-20-designing-the-architecture-of-architectural-design-collaboration/

Thank You.

(There will be 2 kickoff meetings on Thursday, April 19th. One at 9am & one at 6pm PST on Architecture Island. The experiment will run from April 19th - May 19th. The following document is posted at the following Wiki: Wikitecture 2.0: Program and Protocol… here’s the pdf)

Like any new burgeoning idea or philosophy, a number of words start springing up to capture its essence with greater accuracy. The growing excitement around Web 2.0 is no different. The following have been sighted in trying to describe this new phenomenon: Mass Collaboration, Social Networking, Wikis, Folksonomies, Open Source, Prosumers, Networked Intelligence, Crowd Sourcing, Crowd Wisdom, Smart Mobs, Peer Production, Lightweight Collaboration, Emergent Intelligence, Social Production, Self-Organized Masses, Collective Genius, Loose Networks of Peers, and Collaborative Infrastructures. But to use Wikipedia’s definition, which is fast approaching the voice of authority, Web 2.0 refers to a ‘perceived second generation of Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.” My personal favorite portrayal is ‘a shared canvas where every splash of paint contributed by one user provides a richer tapestry for the next user to modify or build on.’

The ideas behind the online collaborative spirit of Web 2.0 have been successfully harnessed in a wide array of disciplines, such as: Wikipedia, Linux, MySpace, InnoCentive, Flickr, Second Life, You Tube, and the Human Genome Project to name a few. With books such as ‘Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything’ fast approaching the New York Times best seller list, it seems as though peer production could provide alternative ways of working for a growing number of other disciplines as well. The question is: Can a field as subjective as architecture, or design in general, benefit from this collective intelligence paradigm?

To help answer this question, ‘Real Life Architects in Second Life’ (RLASL) will be conducting a ‘Wikitecture’ experiment on Architecture Island in Second Life over the next month to determine just how feasible a collaborative approach in design might be in the architectural profession. Not only will we aspire to create a noteworthy building design in the process, we want to use this experiment to explore and flesh out the specific measures, protocol, and tools necessary to make collaborative, asynchronous design in architecture a reality. I guess it goes without saying that since this is an experiment around open collaboration, we need contributors—we need you. You do not have to have any experience in Architecture or building to participate. We actually believe the more diverse the pool of contributors, the better. Whether you contribute to the design of the building or offer suggestions on how to improve the process of open-design, we welcome and need, any contributions you may have; no matter how big or small. Help us work out if there’s an Architecture of Architectural Design Collaboration?

Since RLASL revolves around using Second Life as a professional and educational tool, we would like the contributors to pretend as though they are designing a real life building and try to address, as this building design evolves, not just design’s ‘delight’, but also its ‘commodity’ and ‘firmness’ as well. Make Vitruvius proud as they say.

When designers are given cart blanche to design anything their imagination can muster, the possibilities are so numerous, finding a direction can sometimes prove difficult. In this vain, we wanted to provide a program for this Wikibuild that would give designers an initial direction, but vague enough, in turn, not to restrict any sense of innovation or creativity.

The Program Catalyst:

The project, located somewhere outside San Francisco, will be conceived of as an artist retreat to host any number of educational and social activities for the ‘RL Architects in SL’ group. Of the few stipulated functions, the building should accommodate an internal courtyard. Since the courtyard will mostly likely be the main gathering area, a large viewing screen, ideally incorporated into the architecture, should be located along one edge of the courtyard. In addition, to play off the burgeoning sustainability movement, a green roof will be located on top of the surrounding building(s). The program, however, in the encircling building can evolve into whatever the community of designers deems appropriate, but an entrance, classrooms, workshops, a library, a kitchen, or offices might be potential candidates and of course, per code, restrooms might be a good idea as well.

Since there are quite a number of students that visit the island, we thought it might be educational if the design of the building itself acted as an exposé of a few basic architectural principles; namely those principles outlined in Francis Ching’s book Architecture: Form, Space, & Order. We ask, as you develop the design to try to incorporate some on the architectural principles outlined in the following table. Do not feel, however, that you have to incorporate every single concept exhaustively; the design would most likely run the risk of becoming a little too chaotic. For those principles that cannot be accommodated within the architecture, we ask that the community designs small simple garden follies within and around the rooftop garden to demonstrate these missing principles.If you do not have access to Ching’s Book, the following PowerPoint lectures, although not exhaustive, cover a majority of the principles outlined above: