Designing in Virtual Spaces; Week Two

Developing a set of Building Modules for use within Virtual Space

Introduced during week Four;
March 27th and 28th

Initial form sketches from the student design groups are brought into virtual space as a set building modules that embody elements of the form vocabulary they use. This set of modules is a first pass at developing a form vocabulary for each of the designers. As students work with their modules, through dialog and through sketches with physical 3D models, and 2D cutouts and drawings, they develop ideas for other modules they would like to build with. Students work with their modules both at full scale in virtual space, and as a set of large building blocks within a virtual design studio there, which is itself within one of the student-designed buildings.

A 3D modeling program is introduced with which these modules for building in the the virtual world may be created. Once created with this software, the modules are made part of the building set the designers may use in their worlds, where they can duplicate them, rotate them, and color them, and arrange them as they wish. At this stage of learning, the teacher does the most of the work of translating their module concepts into models, and invites student participation in the process and in learning how it is done, opening the way for students who wish to develop this skill.

The sample design modules made for the virtual space are considered in more depth, and other models are considered, in order to stimulate thinking about the range of modules students may wish to add to their kits in order to extend their vocabularies.

1) Group One:

Version One: The building modules for this structure include arcs and flat walls of two different heights, and are used to create a structure with two interrelated buildings, one shorter building curved around a central tower.

Function: These modules are being created to define a museum complex and cultural center. The site is also to have a developed park area. It will be possible to set up real exhibits in this space, and hold events there that people from different parts of New York City and the globe can come to. Its first exhibit will be one of the work of students in this class. In that exhibit, we can place scanned images of work, photographs of models, and virtual 3D models of design concepts that can be links to full-scale buildings elsewhere in the design space or in other virtual worlds.

2) Group Two:

Function: These modules create a set of high-rise buildings, connecting bridges, and smaller secondary structures.

3) Group Three:

4) Teachers' Group:

Version One: The following shows structures made with what is at core a two-piece module kit. These two building units are shown next to the first two structures, that are composed entirely of them. As the kit is developed, these two building units will develop and other pieces will be added to it, like the horizontal hexagon to the far right that is used in the third structure's floor and ceiling. Other horizontal and vertical flat panels and curved panels will be added as the kit develops, and variations on these modules that allow transparency in different places and different types of details will also be created. One type of detail will be window and door openings or transparencies. Other details will have to do with supporting indoor green areas, and supporting a variety of heights of structures. Many details will develop having to do with the functions of the structure, such as some of the objects within the structure. Some details will be purely sculptural or embody aesthetic content in other ways.

Function: These modules are being built to help visualize what is to be to a large part a design center for many disciplines, supporting in unique ways the classical, folk, and modern traditions of the world in areas such as writing, music, graphic design, drawing and painting, dance, architecture, and sculpture. These disciplines and the work artists and artisans do in them will sit at the basis of visionary play and idea development with new and old technologies, and will in part be organized around the theme of learning and creating in the process of "Worldbuilding."

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