Tag Archives: virtual place

update: ‘Rethinking Virtual Places’ Proof Approved

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, publication, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , ,

I mentioned in the below post that I was on the home stretch with this book (in the Indiana University Press Spatial Humanities series), final proof was approved by me this week. I also noticed it was over 107,000 words. Thanks to Dean and Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel for the comments on the back.

“An essential contribution to a very current topic.” —Marc Aurel Schnabel, Victoria University of Wellington

If anyone wishes to review or consider ‘Rethinking Virtual Places‘ for courses please contact Indiana University Press or email me.

Final touches to next book

Notes: paucity of architectural theory in virtual place design

Architecture, Virtual Reality, ,

Learning from essentialism in architecture:

Essentialist Polemics in Architectural History, 2006:

…major architectural theories are fundamentally representational, and can be summarized as theories of semiotics, empathic projection, material symbolism (as tectonic glorification, or territorial protectionism), or as reflections of a community (and the related notion of archaeological structuration). This paper will argue that even if there are particular features of architectural design not shared by other related disciplines, that the above major theories, (as well as non-representational formalist theory), are all open to an accusation of impoverished essentialism…I suggest the followingargument: that with one notable exception, major architectural theories are fundamentally re-presentational. These theories can be summarizedas theories of semiotics, empathic projection, ma-terial symbolism (as tectonic glorification, or territo-rial protectionism), or as reflections of a community(and the related notion of archaeological structu-ration).The above classification of these theories is to high-light problems common to architectural aesthetics

One does not have to be essentialist about essentialist theories in architecture, one can mix match and modulate

These theories avoid discussing architecture intertwined with a sense of place, they concentrate on representation and form (see Wittgenstein, Family Resemblance argument).

19thC architectural theory started addressing changes in style and the role of empathy but was overtaken by industrialization, painting and sculpture and light-weight furniture, industrial, portable, stackable.

(Mention in passing the advantages and disadvantages of Horta, and Gaudi).

When you consider all the aspects of building buildings and how so many other disciplines are involved, it is still hard to extract the relationship and inter-relationship of architecture as building meaningful places and inter-places.

Architecture also pioneered the use of transition spaces, interstitial places, and objects that created transitional viewing and acting spaces/translucent and perforated visual barriers and so on (mention here Villa Mairea, Asplund’s diaphanous work inspired by Strindberg’s set design in A Ghost Play.., the transitional wall in Utzon’s housing estates)

Virtual places typically lack transitional spaces, breathing areas, the diaphanous, the moulded, in brief, the interplaces. They concentrate on form, colour, light.

Book in preparation “Designing The ‘Place’ Of Virtual Space”

3D and game editors, Announcements, Book, Digital Humanities, visualisation, ,

Indiana University Press just approved the contract for the following book in their Spatial Humanities Series. The chapters may change slightly over the next half-year, and final publication is of course dependent on a full final academic review, but here is my plan for it (and I would appreciate suggestions, links, readings to add to the final product).

Title: Designing The ‘Place’ Of Virtual Space

Despite the many architects talking about virtual environments in the early 1990s (Novak, 2015, Novak and Novak, 2002, Packer and Jordan, 2002, Wiltshire, 2014), there is relatively little publicly accessible research on making, experiencing and critiquing virtual places is only in conference papers, book chapters and edited collections. These forms of academic literature are also more likely to be found in the computational sciences, and are not often or easily accessed by humanities scholars. So I have an overall purpose here: to communicate with humanities scholars the importance of understanding how digital and virtual places are designed, experienced and critiqued.

I suggest that technology is not the fundamental problem in designing virtual places. Are there specific needs or requirements of real places that prevent us from relying on digital media and ‘online worlds’ experts? Or is it not so much that the new tools are currently too cumbersome or unreliable, but instead it is our conventional understanding of place design and platially situated knowledge and information that needs to change?

Secondly, I will review concepts in various space and place-related disciplines, both historically and in terms of digital media, to examine where they converge or diverge, and which methods and tools are of relevance to digital (and especially virtual) place-making. Here I suggest the terms Place, Cultural Presence, Game and World are critically significant. Clearer definition of these terms would enrich clarify and reveal the importance of real-world place design but also for virtual world design in terms of interaction, immersion and meaning. I will then apply these terms and concepts to virtual worlds, virtual museums and online game-environments to see if the theories and predictions match what happened to the various digital environments.

Thirdly, I will describe recent development in neuroscience and how they may help our understanding of how people experience, store and recollect place-related experiences. Can these discoveries help our design of virtual places? The chapter on learning and especially place-learning will benefit from this survey of recent scientific research.

Fourth, this book will cover game mechanics, and how they can be used in virtual place design to make digital environments more engaging and the learning content more powerful and salient. The importance of interaction design is typically underplayed, under-reported and under-evaluated. We still have not truly grasped the native potential of interactive digital media as it may augment architecture, and that is why debate on the conceptual albeit thorny issues of the subject matter is still in its infancy. I believe that understanding game mechanics is of great relevance to virtual place designers and I will put forth an argument as to why, a clear definition of game mechanics and an explanation of different types of game mechanics suited to differing design purposes.

The fifth aim of this book is to give a brief introduction to new and emerging software and devices and explain how they help, hinder or replace our traditional means of designing and exploring places-is technology always an improvement here?

The last subject chapter will then explore evaluation methods (both traditional and recent), which address the complicated problem of understanding how people evaluate places, and whether this knowledge can be directly applied to the evaluation of virtual places.

Chapters

  1. Place Theory Applied to Virtual Environments
  2. How Mind Remembers Space, How Places are Meaningful and Evocative
  3. Dead or Dying Virtual Worlds
  4. Place Affordances of Virtual Environments Learnt From Affordances in Real Places
  5. Place Interaction and Mechanics
  6. Learning from Place
  7. Place-Making Devices, Place-Finding Devices
  8. Evaluation
  9. Conclusion

Uploaded some older papers: Virtual Places, and The Limits of Realism

Architecture, virtual heritage, , ,

Virtual Places
Article. From: Encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies, 2006, Idea Group Reference

Communities identify and are identified by not just the clothes they wear or by the language they speak, or even by the way they greet each other. Communities are often identified by where their activities take place, how they use spaces to construct meanings, and the traces left by their social interactions. These “trigger” regions are thus not just points in space; they are also landmarks, havens, homes, ruins, or hells. Communities, then, are identified and identify with or against, not just space but place. For places do not just organize space; they orient,
identity, and animate the bodies, minds, and feelings of both inhabitants and visitors.

The Limits of Realism in Architectural Visualisation
Conference paper.
FOR: LIMITS XXIst annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand Melbourne, Australia (SAHANZ) 26–29 September, 2004 website: http://sahanz04.tce.rmit.edu.au/
ABSTRACT
In March 2004 the eminent scholar Professor Marco Frascari presented an informal seminar at the University of Melbourne in which he argued computer reconstructions of architecture were far too exact and thus too limited in conveying the mood and atmosphere of architecture. With all due respect to Professor Frascari, this paper will argue the converse: that recent developments in interactive technology offer new and exciting ways of conveying ‘lived’ and experientially deepened notions of architectural placemaking. Using current research findings in virtual presence studies, archaeological theory and site reports, as well as usability evaluations; this paper will examine the above issues in relation to a recently created and evaluated virtual reconstruction of a Mesoamerican cityLIMITS XXIst annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand Melbourne, Australia (SAHANZ) 26–29 September, 2004