Designing
and Building within and for Virtual Environments;
Re-envisioning and Designing Lower Manhattan
A project
of the Institute for Learning Technologies at Columbia Teachers
College carried out in coordination with the Bread and Roses Integrated
Arts High School and the New York City Public School system
During
the spring of 2002, students developed personal visions of what
might be built in lower Manhattan and designed and build first
approximations of those visions with real materials and in virtual
space. Their work, set within representations of the blocks
surrounding the World Trade Center, considered the potentials
of both real and virtual design environments. This work is a
research site of the larger Worldbuilding/Cityscope project
initiated at Columbia University developing virtual learning
environments in New York City, anchored to real settings, stories,
people, and cultural institutions and resources.
Beginning
visualization and thinking with real materials, students work
with design kits to start constructions that evolve over the course
of the project and serve as a way for them to play with form.
As these constructions evolve, they are used in visual and verbal
dialog among students about the types of forms buildings and other
public and personal spaces might take both in real and virtual
settings. Students are encouraged to explore. They are invited
to consider original building proposals and constructions of the
past, present, and future as a way to stimulate personal intuitions
and decisions about what to build within the context of the city's
needs.
