The Virtual Peace Garden

Yesterday, I listened to Leslie Jarmon from UT talk about their bold, one-year experiment with SL. Rather than rehash that, though, I want to use this post to clarify my own thinking about why I am using SL, a post I more or less started yesterday. Jarmon did say that students want the use of SL to be absolutely crystal clear and connected to learning goals, so here goes:

1. Second Life is a new kind of architectural environment that I think architecture students should understand and be aware of. In some form or other in the not too distant future, architects will be leading clients through immersive environments to show them models.

2. Second Life as a new environment should stimulate creativity--buildings do not have the usual constraints, landscaping does not have the usual constraints. Builders for SL, because of the game-like nature, need to think about user experience and user interactivity. These skills should carry over into any architectural project.

3. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, authors of Learning from Las Vegas, believe that architects do not think enough about iconography; they think about space, and about architecture as sculpture, but not architecture as iconography. SL should help students think about architecture as iconography.

4. Because I am not asking students to actually build in SL, I hope they will see that this assignment is very much about "writing architecture." Maya Lin, according to the documentary Clear Strong Vision, won the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition because of her essay: she was able to verbally describe a simple, powerful vision with an emphasis on user interaction. Normal Weinstein, in his commentary about the importance of writing for architecture students, wrote "The freshest new architecture in my city — Boise, Idaho — is an art gallery initially constructed through a writing exercise. The architect presented a plan to the client: Both would spend a week writing an uninhibited, extravagant, richly imaginative description of the proposed gallery. They would then meet and discuss their writing. Surprisingly, each wrote a description of an uncannily similar design originally inspired by the designs of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The gallery was written into existence, a mutual weave of writing as much a part of its foundation as poured concrete."

5. I usually put on my syllabus, "No play, no joy, no life." I do want this assignment to be playful, joyful, and full of life. Initial forays into SL seem to be achieving that; now that we are getting down to work, the challenge will be to keep the playfulness and joy in the project.