Category Archives: second life

Web 2.0 meets Built Environment – possible event

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Some Web 2.0 enthusiasts, including myself, have started talking, Tweeting, wikifying and now blogging about a possible UK event where built environment people interested in Web 2.0 (and, equally, Web 2.0 people interested in the built environment) might get together and share ideas about synergies between the two worlds.

Provisionally named BE2camp, the event would be run on unconference, BarCamp principles (similar to PodCampIreland), possibly in mid-October, but as the BE2camp wiki-site currently says: “At the moment this is just a seed, an idea that has bounced around….”

It needs people’s involvement to make if fly (can a seed fly? – bit of a mixed metaphor there!). If you are interested in getting involved, whether as a speaker, attendee, a sponsor, a host (we need a venue – London would be good, but don’t let that put you off suggesting an alternative), or an online participant, please register your interest on the site. In addition  this would be a great event to find out just what is Web2.0, blogging, wiki, twitter and second life all about – and how it can help you and your organisation.

Thanks to Paul over at EvolutionExtranet for writing this item – feel free to syndicate to your blogs 🙂

eco tour in second life

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In advance of the Public Works orientation day take a look at the video, Eco Tour on Second Life. produced earlier this year by UC/Berkeley graduate student Stephanie Gerson (Sequioa Hax in Second Life) and Charles Lawrence (Geuis Teses in Second Life),  part of a larger project with the Environmental Protection Agency to explore how computer and video game technologies can be applied to environmental issues.

The tour will take you to places like:

  • Eolus One, where a virtual world energy management system is reducing energy consumption in real-world buildings; This should be of interest to all facilities managements people and those in the built environment.
  • Etopia Eco-village which showcases sustainable architecture and sustainable living;
  • the Avatar Action Center that seeks to educate Second Life residents about sustainability issues and empower them to take action in their real lives; and
  • Second Chance Trees where residents plant virtual trees that trigger the planting of endangered tree species worldwide.

second life orientation day for built environment ppl

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Friend and colleague Pam Broviak from the Public Works Group in SL, GridWorks and LaSalle Illinois, has just posted an item on her blog regarding our planned orientation day on June 28th.  Join us for an introduction and guided tour. UK times and a programme are still to be confirmed, but it should be possible to log on from 10am BST.

Pam explains:

With the upcoming Sustainability Now virtual conference, the Public Works Group is offering an Orientation Day on Public Works Island in Second Life on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Seasoned Second Life residents will be on hand to greet you as you enter Second Life.

If you have never been in Second Life, this is a great opportunity to try it out knowing that there will be people there to meet you and help show you the ropes. Because most people have not been exposed to this type of interface, entering Second Life alone with little guidance at the beginning can be challenging. We are hoping to make that transition a little easier by being there to answer questions, give away free stuff you might need for your virtual world, and point you to some interesting places in Second Life that are tasteful and engaging.

By registering through the Public Works Group Web site, you will enter Second Life on Public Works Island instead of through the normal orientation that others go through if registering on Second Life’s site. This way you avoid all the chaos and instead enter Second Life in an area that is more professionally themed.

wikitecture wins international open source competition

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A web2 collaborative project I have been following through second life and wiki architecture has been the open source architecture design competition via Open Architecture Network.

Delighted then to receive the following good news alert from Ryan at Wikitecture:


Wikitecture Wins International Competition: 3D-Wiki Used to Compose an Open-Source Entry

Chicago, IL, June 09, 2008 – Out of 566 registered entries from 57 countries, Studio Wikitecture won the overall ‘Founder’s Award’ for their open-source entry to a competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity on the Open Architecture Network. In keeping with the collaborative spirit of the Open Architecture Network, their entry for a tele-medicine facility in Western Nepal was chosen “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


Having conducted a number of experiments over the last year into the feasibility of applying an open-source paradigm to the practice of architecture, the Studio Wikitecture group developed a 3D-Wiki plug-in on the virtual reality platform, Second Life, that they used to help build consensus among the numerous contributors in this open-source project.

The ‘Wiki-Tree’ as it was called, acted as a version tracking system that worked very much like a conventional Wiki, but instead of tracking text documents in a linear history as you see in Wikipedia, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ tracked versions of 3-dimensional models and saved them within a continually evolving 3-dimensional digital tree ‘canopy’. Similar to Wikipedia, this 3D-Wiki allowed this loose, self-organized group of contributors to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and vote on which design iterations should be considered for further refinement.

Over and above the actual building design, Studio Wikitecture’s entry proposed that the wiki-tree and virtual model live on pass the competition and be used to help incorporate feedback from the Nepalese community and end-users into evolving design.

In addition, they proposed that the virtual platform would allow individuals from around the world to experience the local site and conditions as the project evolves over time, further expanding the outreach, awareness and support for this project to a global audience.

The winning entry was the result of Studio Wikitecture’s 3rd Wikitecture experiment to explore the procedures and protocols necessary to practice a more open and distributed approach to architectural design. Of those, the group explored prediction market voting procedures to assure consensus or ‘Crowd Wisdom’, as well as developed a contribution assessment system to divvy up fair ownership among all the contributors.

The Final Competition Boards: http://flickr.com/photos/studiowikitecture/sets/72157604038184909/show/

A time-lapse video of the evolving design:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=amCi90zH3VI

A video illustrating how the ‘Wiki-Tree’ works:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z3eWKIJxzyc

A journal article outlining, in detail, the three Wikitecture experiments:

http://crescendodesign.com/103_chase.pdf

The accompanying website:

http://studiowikitecture.com/ (click on ‘go’ twice to enter anonymously)

The Blog:
http://studiowikitecture.wordpress.com/

3DCamp slides, invitation and links

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Here are my 3Dcamp slides, which, had I not been thwarted by Limerick Munster match traffic would have presented, giving a background to second life activities. I was fortunate to participate in the plenary panel though, which was a great discussion of virtual worlds, of which I will put my notes up here asap.

Well done to organisers James Corbett and Gabriela Avram

The 3DCamp website can be found here

and a series of flickr images here

Invitation to Orientation day …

As mentioned in Limerick, we are holding an orientation day for our second life activities on the 28th June. Watch this space for times. (We hope to cover the UK and US Saturday afternoon time zones). So if you haven’t ventured into second life as yet – here is that opportunity and reason to do so. You will be greeted and shown around our projects and other interesting ‘builds’ within SL. We hope to engage a number of SL friends to show you around their (related) projects too. Maybe even end up with music and Guinness at the Blarney Stone!

Links

3DCamp was live blogged and live tweeted by Krishna De via Cover it Live on her excellent BizGrowth News blog. (thanks Krishna)

3DCamp

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Suddenly find myself with the possibility of speaking about our second life activities on the Public Works Island and International Eco Code Park at the 3DCamp in Limerick on the 24th May.

By a coincidence I will be travelling through Limerick that day. The event will be live within second life, through twitter with questions to speakers via tweets. A right old mash up !!

so what is it?

3Dcamp is a themed Barcamp which will focus on virtual worlds (Second Life, the Metaverse), mirror worlds (Google Earth and Virtual Earth), mapping mashups, GPS, Location based Services (LBSs), haptics (eg. Wiimote hacks), 3D modelling (Blender, Sketchup) and all things 3D. Essentially the internet beyond the 2D browser.

Everybody is welcome, from users to entrepreneurs, developers, interaction designers, sociologists, artists and business people. More details to follow…

When: Saturday 24th May 2008
Where: Engineering Research Building, University of Limerick
Start & Finish: 10am start, 5pm’ish finish

second life building

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I have been talking about building within second life recently to a number of people and groups. Without actually experiencing second life it is difficult to grasp how individuals, all working from computers in different countries can work collaboratively to design and construct a building.

The following time lapse video may go some way to help vision how second life can work for designers and builders. One of these avatars could well be the client – making design and function decisions with the design / build team. This approach can be used to show potential clients new build designs prior to real life construction as was the case with Aloft hotels and others. Once completed visitors can walk through and experience the building and feedback comments for improvement.

Wanted – eco home builders for second life project

And if you get the bug to design and build in second life:

Design Build Expo – May 17th @ the Monogram Virtua Convention Center. Enter to win L$20000, publicity and lots of advertising. Get the recognition you deserve and show off your building skills at the Design/Build Expo. Display your builds/services & products.

a second life transition town

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Just joined a transition town group within second life:

a group for like minded people that are adopting a Transition Model (in RL or SL) for responding to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change.

to develop a framework for the 2021 Energy Descent Action Plan, providing information and ultimately a 2021 sim city, a model town living an oil-free sustainable manner.

isite in second life

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To enable the second life discussions around isite themes of built environment sustainability, isite now has a new meeting facility within second life courtesy of the Public Works Island.

In addition to adhoc discussions with second life friends from around the world, it is planned to hold structured, but still informal events, exchanging ideas and approaches to sustainability in its very widest sense.

Join us in second life – we are here

To join Second Life through the Public Works Group

Facilities Management now in Second Life

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The inaugural Centre for Facilities Management Second Life (SL) seminar took place today, Wednesday April 2nd 2008. The seminar, facilitated by Martin Brown, (aka Brand Woodin in SL) focused on Sustainable FM, but also referred to the developing research area of Community-based FM which looks at FM outside of the traditional boundaries and organisational settings and suggests the FM has a role to play in community (in its broadest sense) settings also.

By putting FM into context the debate began to consider the effect FM has or could have on the environment. It led to debating issues such as transition towns (see Totnes as an example) – what role does FM have?; and building consumption -v- building production – to what extent is this about FM usability agenda or is it just an issue for the construction community?

The debate also led to discussion about developing a wider definition of FM which encompasses the sustainability agenda and could be accommodated by the wider construction community. Such a definition could look at how FM could be a means to facilitate understanding about the environment, about communities and about facilities. Debate then ensued as to what the tag line for this could be!

Wednesday April 9th 2008 was the second Centre for Facilities Management SL event. The seminar was delivered by Helsinki Institute of Technology by Nils Gersberg (aka Nils Lowenstark in SL) and looked at Pro-work research.

Pro-work is a relatively new research concept and focuses on how organisations and teams in organisations work together, and how they develop knowledge. The debate considered how different types of organisations – for example those that use hot-desking, those that employers freelancers / contract staff, those requiring staff to come to the office or work from home – develop their strategies for team collaboration. Additionally the effect dispersed working -v- office based working has on FM was also considered, and this debate connected back to the previous weeks debate on sustainability considerations as well as wider definition and working practices of FM.

Thanks to Eleanor Jackson for the above text ( aka Salfordfm Destiny in SL)

Centre for Facilities Management Second Life has a meeting place presence in Second Life on the Manchester UK sim.  Drop by and say hello and participate within our debates.

Email for further information on CFM in SL or future meetings.