From: max@city.arch.wustl.edu (Max Garcia) Subject: EDUC: Virtual Design Studio held over Internet Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 10:04:29 -0700 This is in response to two inquiries made over the net. The first, from Wayne Thomas (K.Wayne.Thomas@williams.edu): >Finally, does anyone know if anyone's done this >before (either a class on the Net/VR/etc., or a >conference/class via an Internet-based form >of VR)? and a personal request from someone on the net asking for a "copy" of the info. What occurred was that 5 schools from 3 different countries (Washington University in St. Louis, MIT, Harvard from the U.S., the University of Hong Kong and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver) held a three week "Virtual Design Studio." The outline was this: 1). The project was to take an existing Chinese Village and design infill housing. The village had an existing perimeter wall and about 1/3 of its interior space taken up by existing structures. The idea, then, was to understand the context, and design within the existing framework while exploring modern ideas. 2). Each student at each school (about 80 students altogether) was to take a lot and create a building. The underlying assumption was that the participants would talk to each other over the net to "see" what the others were up to. Collaboration along the net was strongly encouraged. 4). The first week was individual lot design as mentioned above. At the end of this first week we were to post our work to a central database in Vancouver. 5). The second week we used the models to create our own villages. In other words, we were to take the models that everyone had done and move them around to create a different village. This mix and match mentality is actually quite antithetical to the idea of architectural design being site and contexturally specific, but we'll suspend that critique for another time. 5). All work was done on CAD programs such as AutoCAD, HOKDraw, etc., and translated into DXF format. 6). Renderings, Animations, Walk-throughs, etc. were strongly encouraged and we all used various packages to do this (Renderize on an SGI, Wavefront, Stratovision on a MAC, etc.). 7). The third week was to be a time to spruce up presentations. At the end of the third week each school was supposed to set up a script of files that we wanted each school to have in a certain order so that we could present our design proposals. The five schools then "met" via a conference call hook-up that lasted nearly three hours. During that time each school presented its ideas, its problems, its frustrations and victories. My impression of the entire experience is as follows: 1). Overall, it was a great experience. "Mind expanding" is my term for all of this. It was great to talk to students at different schools, particularly in Hong Kong and Vancouver. The idea of interacting across political borders without diplomats, politicians and passports is so appealing that that alone made the experience worth the time investment. 2). The technical side did have glitches, as was expected. This was, to our knowledge, the first time an architectural studio was held over the Internet and probably the first time this many schools collaborated. To our knowledge this is probably the first class of this kind sponsored by any department any University, although I'd be interested to find out if there were any others before us. In any event, technically we did have problems. Some files could not be read by certain schools and platforms even though they were in the prescribed format and some schools had equipment and devices others did not so that they were excluded from showing all that they wanted. Also, during the final review MIT's system crashed for about an hour and other schools had problems finding information. It was not smooth by any stretch but then again, nobody expected it to go through without a hitch. I had a professor whose motto was "the first man over the hill gets shot" and we probably had our share of sniper fire. Overall, though, I would recommend this kind of interaction that breaks down the borders and gets across cultural boundaries. You'll learn a hell of a lot more about a hell of a lot. The school will do this again if it happens and I think more schools will join us next time. I'm an older student just finishing up a Masters in Architecture and looking for employment opportunities designing virtual worlds and this experience was incredible in that regards. It explored all the concepts of virtual world interaction, design, and presentation. It is what VR and the Internet should be used for, teaching, exploring, learning from others, gaining from the breaking down of borders, both political and temporal. A week or so ago a note came over this network that someone was looking for people to invest time in developing a VR game over the net. This is what it's all about. I think it's a great idea. Collaboration without regard to geography, getting people to talk and develop ideas. I leave with one last thought. If anyone would be interested in trying to establish these kind of teaching/learning/collaborative links, drop me a note and I'll see about getting the University here to sponsor some kind of Cyberspace class. Maximillian Garcia @ Washington University in St. Louis Max@city.arch.wustl.edu P.S. I've noticed that people put little sayings at the end of their notes. I'll add one: "Why is that people want to learn the tricks of the trade? Why not learn the trade?"