The online interactive software program Second Life has become an emerging place of architecture research that ranges from a practice tool to an open-ended exploration of design context and expression. Especially in architecture schools, its immersive 3D environments allow users to conceptualize and design a space quickly, thus opening it up for investigation by other users, which allows designers to see how it will be used and how people will circulate through it.
Vasquez de Velasco and his students have been using Second Life to design a hotel and surge hospital with the Las Americas Network. Proving Second Life’s ability to obliterate geographic distances, Las Americas is composed of students from Ball State and from 30 architecture schools across Latin America. Ball State’s Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation (IDIAA) helped to execute Las Americas design ideas, while BSA Lifestructures, an Indianapolis firm with a robust health-care practice, reviewed and evaluated students’ work.
More Information: http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0220/0220d_secondlife.cfm