Imagining Real Places with Virtual Spaces at Berkman
Today’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society lunch focuses on mixing virtual worlds with the real world to plan new spaces and build communities. As you might imagine, there are a few people from Linden Labs, the folks behind Second Life, and fans of Second Life. Hub2 is one of the sites.
Imagine, design, engage, and activate (IDEA) is a handy way to think about these kinds of projects.
The present project is to build a park around the >Honan-Allston Library, a branch of the Boston Public Library:
“In July-August 2008 Hub2 will be working with Allston residents and stakeholders, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and Harvard’s Allston Development Group to augment the current community participation process with 3D Tools. Residents will step into a model of the park in the virtual world of Second Life and, through organized workshops, be able to move things around, flag spaces for further consideration, and experience potential uses.”
(Wow. I say “library” and now I have your attention. Giving you a real world example of using a virtual world for real world planning wasn’t enough, eh.)
“Is that the dog?” a presenter asks, looking at a dark form dart around the space in Second Life projected on the screen behind him. “Yes, it is. We even gave the park a stray dog,” he explains. Later, we see the dog sleeping in the parking lot. “Be cartoony, but literal,” he advises. (How can I work a stray dog into the talk I’m giving Friday?)
In the virtual world, people can freely tour the proposed physical space and leave comments marked by flags other people can see, read, and to which they can respond.
OK, here’s what addresses what many of you have been thinking while reading about this use of Second Life: the adapters are approaching this use of Second Life as if no one in the community has access to Second Life or knows what it is. Most of the people in that neighborhood of Boston probably don’t have computers at home, besides computers that are snazzy enough to get to Second Life. There’s special space at the library where people can go to use the computers to get to Second Life. They also have youth interpreters, if you will, who have been trained in the issues regarding the park and the space in Second Life who act as guides to people who come to the library to view the space. They’re considering alternate access to the virtual world, like filming a tour to post on YouTube or making a static Web site. Language is also probably an issue, too.
Some of the benefits from this project include minimizing public misinformation, gathering good intelligence from the community, making the process transparent and reviewable, and improve neighbor relations (which is something many institutions, like Harvard, find challenging).
