AIAS FORUM 2008: \"Architecture in
Motion\"
\"From Architecture to Wikitecture:
How Virtual Worlds and Web 2.0
Will Revolutionize the Profession –
Part 1/2\"
Presented by Jon Brouchoud
December 31st 1:00-2:00PM
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
view in full screen to read transcript

Welcome everyone.
How many of you know
what Second Life is?
First of all, how many of
you have ever been in
Second Life? How
many of you have
played an online virtual
world game like World
of Warcraft or
Everquest?
Ok great. So, it seems
that most of you are
already comfortable
with the concept of
virtual worlds and how
they work, to some
extent.
While online gaming worlds are now commonplace, what is exciting from architectural perspective, is that virtual worlds like
Second Life are starting to transcend purely recreational use, and are being adopted for professional and academic
applications.
But, what is even more exciting is that, like all new advances in technology, people are discovering clever and innovative ways
of taking this new technology, and doing things we could never do with a 2-dimensional web.

Today I'm going to start
off by showing you
some of the ways
architecture and
design professionals
are using the virtual
world of Second Life.
After that, Ryan will
walk us through the
bigger picture of why
all of this matters, and
how we think it will
affect you as the next
generation of
architectural
professionals.
If all goes well with our
internet connection
here, we will conclude
with a live
demonstration of
Second Life, and show
you how we're using a
new method we call
Wikitecture to
collaboratively design
a telemedical center
for a village in rural
Nepal.
So, what is Second Life?
Developed by a company in San Francisco called Linden Lab, its is an online virtual world platform, accessed by tens of thousands of users at
any given moment, through 3D representations of themselves called avatars. What makes this place unique is that everything in this world is
created and owned by those residents who come together to interact, play, learn, do business and communicate. [slide] The platform
provides tools which allow residents to build their own environments, create highly personalized avatars, clothes, vehicles and, of course,
architecture - really, anything you can imagine can be created in Second Life.

Just to give you an
idea of how rapidly
Second Life is growing,
when I first created my
account in June of last
year, there were about
200,000 accounts.
[slide] Today there are
almost 12 million who
have been logged in
during the past 60 days
alone.

There is an in-world
economy, traded in
what are called
'Linden Dollars', which
can be cashed in for
real U.S. dollars. [slide]
Millions of dollars worth
of transactions take
place every day.

Second Life is not a
game. There are no
monsters to slay, quests
to solve, or any
princess to save. It is
really whatever you
want it to be.

It is a realtime
streaming
environment, so if it isn't
as smooth or polished
as what you see in
other video games, its
because everything
needs to be rendered
on your graphics card
in real-time. As a result
it requires a modern
computer with a
reasonably high quality
graphics card.

In order to ensure that
everything the
residents build in
Second Life is simple
enough to be
rendered by the
average graphics
card, Linden Lab
included a very simple
in-world menu of
building tools.

Everything is built with
the basic building
block known as a
'primitive object' or
'prim'.
Everything is built with
the basic building
block known as a
'primitive object' or
'prim'.
Each land parcel has a
limit to the number of
prims it will support.
This prevents any single
land owner to get
carried away and build
objects that would bog
down everyone else's
experience.
For this reason, outside
CAD models cannot
be imported - yet. But
the technology is
evolving rapidly, and it
shouldn't be long
before we can do that.

But in the meantime,
the in-world tools, while
simple, are actually
capable of producing
some pretty
phenomenal stuff.
You'll find that once
you get good with
those tools, you're
really only limited by
your own imagination.
So lets take a look at
how architects are
using Second Life
already today.

4th year students of
architecture at the
Royal Institute of
Technology in
Stockholm have been
using Second Life for
an entire course
devoted to
architectural
exploration for 4
semesters now.

The University of Texas
at Austin just finished
the 'Alley Flats' initiative
in Second Life, where
they built several
sustainable or green
alley flat houses and
invited the public in to
tour the designs. [slide]
The builds were fully
interactive, where you
could walk inside each
demonstration house
and click on the
various sustainable
features to learn more
about how they work.

The University of
Montanta at Bozeman
has been using Second
Life in their
architectural courses
for several years now.
Professor Terry
Beaubois has been
leading that charge,
and his students have
been doing some
amazing things. Terry's
work in Second Life has
been featured in
Architect magazine,
Metropolis Magazine,
Architectural Record
and many others. In
fact, he demonstrated
his student's work at this
year's AIA Convention
in Nashville.

Ted Mikulski did his
Thesis project for a
Masters degree in
architecture at
Norwich University. Not
only was the project
based on Second LIfe,
but his final
presentation was
simulcast and
streamed live into
Second Life. [slide ]

Audience members
literally able to walk
around inside of his
design concept on
their own as he
described his ideas.

There are lots of
replicas of famous
builds such as the
Farnsworth Residence,
Fallingwater, Gregory
Ain's Mar Vista
residence, and many
others.
People are building
virtual renditions of
entire cities. Given the
scale, many of these
are approximations,
but some are actually
very realistic and
accurate. There is a
virtual Manhatten,
London, Amsterdam,
Stockholm, Rome,
ancient rome, ancient
Egypt and I'm sure
there are many others
I'm not aware of.

This is actually how I
started using it, our
studio is located in the
middle of nowhere, but
we service clients
throughout the
midwest. If I could
build our design ideas
in this environment,
and invite our clients
here - it could be a
pretty major time-
saver, and allow us to
really differentiate
ourselves by doing
something nobody else
has done before.

Our clients could
literally walk right inside
of our design ideas.
They can spend as
much time in the place
as they want, from the
comfort of their home
computers. They can
invite friends and family
in - pick out paint
colors, material types
and finishes, and even
test out furniture
layouts or landscape
options.

There's a firm in
Amsterdam that has
taken this idea to a
whole new level.
They're building
massive real life
projects - 10's of
thousands of square
feet worth of designs.
They visit with clients,
builders and investors
in Second Life, and use
the virtual model to
lease spaces to renters
- who can then use
their virtual space to
test their own build-out
ideas. This virtual
model really goes on
to augment this bricks
& mortar space
indefinitely.

arcspace, the popular
online architecture
magazine has an
island, and uses it to
build community with
readers from around
the world, and host
monthly architectural
exhibitions that
compliments the online
articles.

Autodesk is in Second
Life. One of my first
projects was to design
and build an island for
Autodesk, makers of
AutoCAD, Revit, Maya
Autodesk has focused
its efforts on providing
events and
community-building
activities.

Phil Bernstein, VP at
Autodesk moderated
an event with Sergio
Palleroni from the
BaSiC initiative

Chris Luebkeman from
the ARUP group
demonstrated his
'Drivers of Change'
concept. [slide ] For
his presentation we
developed an
interactive space that
corresponded to his
presentation.

Even the CEO of
Autodesk has an
avatar, and he invited
me to demonstrate my
work in Second Life last
year at Autodesk
University during his
keynote address.

We had one of the
founders of Sun
Microsystems, John
Gage, moderate an
event with Cameron
Sinclair from
Architecture for
Humanity For that
event, the architecture
community actually
built a replica of the
'Porchdog' concept
they were building in
real-life at the time as
part of a hurricane
Katrina relief effort.

In fact, New Zealand's
equivalent to the AIAS
Forum actually built an
entire island in Second
Life this year for their
annual convention.
They even held a
competition, AND
streamed their entire
conference live into
Second Life, so people
from all around the
world could attend.
So, they might be
ahead of you guys, but
Ryan and I took both
first AND second place
in their competition!

Second Life really is a
social experience.

A german architect
who had recently
discovered the
theoretical work of
Parisian architect Yona
Friedman, decided to
realize his ideas in
Second Life.

He has built an entire
island, and a very
dedicated community
of participants who are
working together to
realize Yona's vision for
a kind of dynamic
architecture and urban
environment.

The Experience Italy
project just built over
585 acres of Italian
Modernist architecture
from the 1930's that
was unable to be
realized due to World
War 2. [slide ] Now
you can actually go
there and experience
what it would have
been like if it would
have been realized.
Not only that, but they
blend music, fashion,
sculpture and art with
the architecture - you
really get a fully holistic
experience there.

There still is nothing like
the experience of
going there and
experiencing this build,
and hearing people
there speaking Italian -
because they're
actually in Italy, but
we're standing
together inside of this
virtual environment...
that reality still amazes
me when I think about
it.

Beyond the social
aspects, there is the
research and
development
applications.
I built a series of
experiments with what I
call 'Reflexive
Architecture' that I built
with scripted objects
that detect your
movement and
respond to your
presence dynamically
as you move through
the space.

aLoft Hotels built their
new flagship hotel in
Second Life far in
advance of
construction in real life,
and invited feedback
from the Second Life
community about how
they could improve the
design.
They took their
feedback, and
actually modified the
design based on this
feedback before
building it in real life.

A company in
Switzerland is actually
working on
comprehensive real-
time architectural data
integration into Second
Life. They have
demonstration houses
with sensors that
monitor everything
from the local weather
to room temperature
and occupancy.
Each of the houses has
a replica built in the
virtual world where
you, as the owner,
actually have remote
operational control
over the house.

Finally there is the
collaborative capacity
of Second Life. The
minute you can get
multiple people in the
same place, and they
all possess the same
ability to create
objects, it opens the
door to some amazing
possibilities for
collaboration.
There are lots of
examples of this, such
as a real life park in
New York called
'Landing Lights'. They
actually built a replica
of the land in Second
Life, and enables the
community of citizens
who would actually be
using the park to
design it for
themselves.

But that's just the
beginning. We've
really taken this
collaborative capacity
to a whole new level
with the Wikitecture
project, and we'll
demonstrate that in a
bit, but first Ryan will
take us back to a
bigger picture of why
something so
seemingly simple as
virtual collaboration
could actually hold the
keys to a total
transformation in the
way we approach
architectural design.