Meanwhile I was ready to build my own virtual Bartlett. I was very excited about all virtual lectures and tutorials I had already attended in SL and wondered why we still did not try using such tutorials in The Bartlett. Moreover making of the virtual Bartlett seemed to be a seamless continuation of my previous ideas about non-office building where physical presence of a building was not necessary for completing day-to-day office tasks. Though still not quite sure if this virtual Bartlett would work or not, I was confident to find out everything through making.
I started from looking for a territory where I could build a relatively large con-struction. It turned out that there are special construction sites in SL called “pub-lic sandboxes” where everybody can build something temporarily or just simply practice his modelling skills. There were many such sandboxes around Second Life and they differ from each other by size and the time between cleanings. Every object created on a public sandbox will be automatically returned to its owner after some period of time (usually a couple hours). This process is called cleaning and it prevents sandboxes from overloading with objects.
When I was happy with sandbox I started modelling. Ground floor slab was the first part to appear and the first thing to challenge my skills. Due to its large size I made it out of 12 box prims and wanted to put a texture of a plan on top of it. Unfortunately it was not possible to apply one texture to the whole slab and I had to cut it in parts in Photoshop and apply to every prim in the correct order. As soon as I got the first slab with plan scheme on it I started to use it as a reference for inner walls. Photographs of the real Bartlett interiors were used to create unique textures for walls, floor and ceiling. After erecting interior walls all these textures were applied to the model which made the virtual Bartlett look very similar to its real prototype. Outer walls were also done from several repetitive parts and the entrance was created using textures with alpha-channel.
I started from looking for a territory where I could build a relatively large con-struction. It turned out that there are special construction sites in SL called “pub-lic sandboxes” where everybody can build something temporarily or just simply practice his modelling skills. There were many such sandboxes around Second Life and they differ from each other by size and the time between cleanings. Every object created on a public sandbox will be automatically returned to its owner after some period of time (usually a couple hours). This process is called cleaning and it prevents sandboxes from overloading with objects.
When I was happy with sandbox I started modelling. Ground floor slab was the first part to appear and the first thing to challenge my skills. Due to its large size I made it out of 12 box prims and wanted to put a texture of a plan on top of it. Unfortunately it was not possible to apply one texture to the whole slab and I had to cut it in parts in Photoshop and apply to every prim in the correct order. As soon as I got the first slab with plan scheme on it I started to use it as a reference for inner walls. Photographs of the real Bartlett interiors were used to create unique textures for walls, floor and ceiling. After erecting interior walls all these textures were applied to the model which made the virtual Bartlett look very similar to its real prototype. Outer walls were also done from several repetitive parts and the entrance was created using textures with alpha-channel.
During the laborious hours of modelling The Bartlett in SL I started to think about the sense of the replicating something real in virtual world. And this topic suddenly ap-peared to be quite controversial. On the other hand, why do we need to have all these rooms, chairs and tables in the virtual world? The roof also does not make much sense because there is no precipitation and walls do not hide anything because it is possible to move your point of view without moving the avatar. Consequently the architecture should start making use of different physics and environment and as a result trans-formed into something completely different. But on the other hand SL pretends to be a real life simulator and it has opportunities to envelop digital interaction between people in a more familiar environment. It seems to me that SL can be considered as another stage of the remote instant communication development. Started with dot-and-dash the technology was gradually evolving during last century through audio, video and other media. Each new step contributed more and more to the elimination of physical boundaries and promoted bringing the remote interaction closer to real life communication. In these terms all attempts of replicating real world in SL do really seem sensible.
To my mind the truth should be somewhere in between. It seems necessary to explore the new possibilities for architecture in the virtual world but at the same time it is rea-sonable not to ignore the opportunity of adding some real life atmosphere to the vir-tual space either. Thus, the precisely replicated Bartlett will be a part of my experiment of creating a new virtual-world oriented space where the reality will be advanced by the virtuality. In other words the building of the Bartlett will be used as a raw material and a reference for a new space which takes into account the absence of gravity, teleportation, interactivity and other specific features of virtual word. Functional characteristics of the Bartlett as an educational institution will be reconsidered along with spatial concept. The on-line class will be held within the virtual Bartlett in order to explore the advantages and drawbacks of such tutorials.
To my mind the truth should be somewhere in between. It seems necessary to explore the new possibilities for architecture in the virtual world but at the same time it is rea-sonable not to ignore the opportunity of adding some real life atmosphere to the vir-tual space either. Thus, the precisely replicated Bartlett will be a part of my experiment of creating a new virtual-world oriented space where the reality will be advanced by the virtuality. In other words the building of the Bartlett will be used as a raw material and a reference for a new space which takes into account the absence of gravity, teleportation, interactivity and other specific features of virtual word. Functional characteristics of the Bartlett as an educational institution will be reconsidered along with spatial concept. The on-line class will be held within the virtual Bartlett in order to explore the advantages and drawbacks of such tutorials.
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