Category Archives: virtual worlds

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.

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.

zeroHouse

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A search over a coffee, starting from Pam’s link (here) led me to zeroHouse.

Now this may be hitting a lot of boxes on the zero list, may be an architects vision or dream, but to call eco (as in ‘eco’ =’home’) and a place to live?

Does this primary school Lego construction have a soul – ie a spiritual dimension. Is it at all aligned to nature – it actually looks as though it has flown in to the location and cant wait to be off again. And just imagine a society, a neighbourhood or development of these. Or even, gulp, an eco-city.

And on the current theme here of usability – has anyone lived in one of these I wonder and feedback comments to designers, or indeed feedforward experiences to the next iterative design.

Saying all that this would be a good design to have within the Second Life International Eco Code Park so visitors can move around, experience its ‘feel’ if only virtually and leave comments on their ‘experience’ (click here to enter into the Park)

are green buildings usable?

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It seems we are becoming awash with green buildings, eco homes and eco towns.

There are some great sites out there with green architecture eye candy (check out Mad Architecture for example).

We have some major and significant conferences and events on the horizon – from the international Eco City 2008, Green Build 2008 and West Coast Green, here in the UK Think 08, and more locally the Elevate Exemplar event in September and the Lancs Best Practice Club July event.  All very different and important to their target audiences.

Even in Second Life there are great green and sustainable ‘built environment’ demonstration and education projects

And yet in all the design, conferences, events and working groups I see very little about the usability of green buildings – what is it like to work, live and play in them?  What does the comfort level  within (and around) green building do for health, for productivity and for well being?  What is it really like to be a citizen of a eco-city such as Auroville?

Once again I am convinced its not the building – green or other wise – but the way we use buildings that is paramount importance on the sustainability agenda – as Prof Keith Alexander down at the Center for Facilities Management comments – its about building consumption – not production. 

Time to turn the telescope around?  Is the green / sustainability movement in the built environment stuck in the building production with eye candy design, at the expense of the usability of the buildings?

As a Friday comment – I am throwing down a challenge for comments and evidence – are  Green Buildings usable?

I invite guest posts here and links to sites that discuss this issue.

The Grid Works

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SLengineer has changed its name to Grid Works with its latest issue to reflect the magazine’s goal of documenting and reporting how companies and people are using online services and tools to support and enhance their work in engineering and science related fields. Available as pdf here

in this issue:

Walking into the Map – David Rumsey shares his extensive map collection with residents of Second Life

TEEX Bridge Tour –  the Texas Engineering Extension brings real life bridge maintenance training to Second Life

Cement Company LSmidth builds a virtual cement plant as an aid for real life recruitment

and how Implenia, Switzerland’s largest construction and building services provider, conceived and developed the virtual worlds communication interface (VWCI)— a tool for monitoring common building automation systems

This is an excellent communication example of how Second Life can be and is relevant to RL businesses, education and general learning / sharing improvements, and pleased that I (and isite) have been co-opted ‘on to the staff’ for future issues of the GridWorks, hopefully bringing an international, well UK view.  Watch this space.

wanted … eco home builder

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I have for a while now been exploring Second Life’s contribution to the built environment – on themes of collaboration, education and usability.

One of these ideas is to create a UK Level 6 Eco Home within second life to use as an educational device. A meeting a month or so ago with Pam Broviak (Public Works Director for the City of LaSalle, Illinois) has led to a collaborative project forming an International Eco-Code Park within Second Life. The Public Work island already contains a US Code House, demonstrating how such virtual builds can be used effectively.

Read more over on Pam’s Public Works blog

The island also contains a brilliant bridge tour built by TEEX enabling you to view all risks and hazards of concrete bridge construction. Read a review in the latest, hot of the press, copy of GridWorks

So a plot of land has been cleared, signs put in place, across the street from the US Code House to build a UK level 6 eco home. Perhaps a Dunster (level 7) home or Hanham Hall home? (Location on Public Works)

We are now seeking support from designers and SL builders to help on this exciting project. If you are a SL builder, educator or would like to fund and support this project please do get in touch. (or IM Brand Woodin or Pam Renoir from within Second Life)

When complete, or indeed even in construction, the international eco-code park will enable educational tours and visits from colleges and universities, on site workshops and discussions along with the show casing of real world eco solutions and material. It is even anticipated the homes could be used to give building code assessors more awareness and depth to training – as the existing TEEX bridge and Code house do already.

If you do not have a Second Life – join up through our dedicated Public Work registration site – you will arrive in Second Life at the Public Works Island and meet other built environment professionals there who will assist with any questions.  We look forward to seeing you there.

sustainable connectivity

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A new look for isite with a new image on the top banner(*). I like this design as it includes a RSS button – to get isite delivered to your desktop, and a search facility to search back through isite items.

But a little more too. After reflection on this blogs contents and direction, I have slightly amended the purpose of isite.

Yes it will continue to be a news views and comments blog for the built environment, poking here and there when things dont seem quite right or dubious, or indeed covered with greenwash. It will continue to be a voice to the online world for the Lancashire Best Practice Construction Club and to a lesser degree the CKE, and will continue to focus on collaborative working, integrated working, facilities management, futures and improvement towards excellence. The emerging web2.0 or even 3.0, and I include second life here, is an important theme that links and enables allot of what we, what I do, so will remain a key element of the posts and comments.

isite is also of course the outlet to the world for my business – fairsnape.  (the name was taken from the local hill in the Forest of Bowland visible from my base here)

However, more importantly I see isite starting to look at connectivity with the natural environment. A number of activities I have been involved with lately has made me realise we may be where we are today because we have lost, and struggling to regain connectivity with our impact on ecology in its widest sense.

What does this mean? – Ecological footprints more than carbon footprints – as John Muir said when we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else . – natural materials rather than harmful – renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, community based FM rather than endless target driven fm, about responsible sourcing rather than supply chain bullying, all putting a new direction to CSR.

I have long used the triptych of fit for people purpose and planet (before it became enshrined into the triple bottom line concept I like to think) . It is what Patrick Geddes would call folk, work and place, nearly a century ago, and reading Satish Kumar over the weekend – he described our modern trinity as needing soil, soul and society. Soil for the environment. soul for a spiritual dimension and society for justice.

Kumar a great walker – now based at the Schumacher college in Dartmoor, that incidentally run courses on Zen and Construction, talks about never trusting ideas that you never worked through whilst walking. “when you walk you are connected with nature, when in a car or a building your are disconnected, you walk to connect yourself”.

A while ago I started a benchmark walking programme to do just this – getting workshops and learning sharing events out of a training room or hotel into the countryside. With a loose agenda that emerges to deal with peoples real improvement needs, benchmarkwalks allows real learning and sharing, I likened it to doing business on a golf course – but this is business improving on a walk.

So all this as a preamble to a new thread for isite – connectivity – one I hope that will give it more scope, depth and importance as we address the sustainability issues, the soil, soul and society issues facing the built environment.

(* taken at Beacon Fell, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire recently – a location for many benchmarkwalks)

virtual world collaboration

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As I have been developing an exciting project in Second Life recently, collaborating in-world (as they say) with people across the US, in the UK, Switzerland and elsewhere – but more on that later – the emerging virtual world collaboration concepts have been rattling around my brain, emails and blogs that I read.

Whilst I bemoaned the fact that Eco-Build event had no real virtual presence, it was good to note Phils push for the virtual Sustainability Now event (now moved to 1 and 2 July).

I haven’t given enough time to the Think on line  forum – it didn’t really take off for me, but I sense that may be addressed through the Think08 event (where hopefully there will be more, and parallel online content)

In what must be a classic oxymoron – the Virtual Worlds conference in New York in April would appear not to be availble online!

An email from Howard Lictman at TelepresenceOptions intrigued me with the expression ‘keeping people off planes and improving collaboration” I guess here in the UK that would translate to ‘keeping people off the roads and improving collaboration” which is always a good thing.  (Telepresence is a conferencing technology where participants feel as if they are in the same physical space.)

Howards fascinating paper: ‘Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light’ can be downloaded here

Facebook is too bloated now for effective collaboration – other than shallow social fun.

Finally there is a debate within  LinkedIn  discussing where the best Live Community collaborations are to be found – Second Life, Facebook, or elsewhere.  Maybe the answer to that is within the blogging community?

built environment futures? (now with links)

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The other evening I had the opportunity to tour around a new state of the art hospital facility, so state of the art it is calling itself the hospital of the future.

As the press release states: The new facility intends to positively transform the traditional health care experience that is normally associated with staying or working in a hospital. The campus will epitomize Cisco and PPH’s shared vision of a ‘Connected Hospital’ where technology and the physical environment seamlessly integrate to enhance patient care through the sharing of timely, accurate information among the right people at the right time, between hospitals and the extended ecosystem of care.

Following the tour – more comments here soon – I popped into the Blarney Stone pub and shared a Guinness or two with a friend whilst listening to a live singer entertain the regulars.

‘Work’ wasn’t over though – it was then off to a small group meeting to discuss how web technology can assist those working in the built environment sectors. This was part of a regular Tuesday evening get together to learn and share on themes that run from using Skype to dealing with Radon.

Possibly a typical afternoon / evening for those involved in improvement forums and tours, except this one was completely virtual within second life, demonstrating the benefits of such platforms for business, communication and learning.

On February 25 ‘cut the ribbon’ on a new hospital – Palomar West – a simulation of a real world hospital campus due to open in 2011 – gives visitors the opportunity to tour the hospital years before its doors actually open. How that for testing future patient comments and user ‘usability’. The ‘experience’ of users can be monitored prior to the building commencing, and real life designs amended accordingly. This is more than the video fly through we see to promote new buildings. I could sit and chat to others, within the reception and discuss our thoughts on the place.

The live singer was in a pub in London, streamed into a virtual pub, the Blarney Stone, on the Dublin sim. (The beer was real but from my own fridge)

The meeting was part of the Construction Group, with members across the globe, learning and sharing in a setting very similar to the thousands of meetings that occur across the country every night. Except this didn’t involve any traveling, didn’t interfere with family life, and with delegates from around the world, huge potential in global learning.

I am planning a regular meeting get to together to discuss the topics raised through isite – so if you have a second life – join the isite group in world, IM me from within second life or just leave a comment below . For more on second life, how to get into the groups, visit places such as the Palomar, contact me here, or leave comments below.

Hospital of the Future press release … Continue reading →