The SLENZ Update – No 118, July 23, 2009

Dayam … I missed this

Brouchoud, Cockeram  work  together

for a striking  architectural machinima

The University of Auckland

Jon Brouchoud (picture right) (YouTube: Keystone1111 SL: Keystone Bouchard ), of the ARCH Network has mounted a striking  machinima  of  the work of  Judy Cockeram (SL: JudyArx Scribe)  and her Second Life class project from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland.

Brouchard say in his orginal report ( here) that  as Cockeram and Auckland University have continued to leverage their virtual ‘Living Sketchbooks’,  when the machinima was made there were 115 first year students exploring the virtual space of Putahi Island which continued to evolve each day.

“After visiting the site several times since construction started, I can confidently say that it does, in fact, feel as though the place is alive,” he said. “Instead of pinning up sketches on a wall, students are exploring design concepts in an immersive virtual environment, where they work amidst the growing virtual community that has grown to hundreds of thousands of users strong, along with a rapidly growing number of architecture schools that are actively exploring virtual worlds in education.”

At the time Judy described the project thus: “They are currently in their first semester doing an Architecture media course, ARCHDRC102 which includes paper based drawing/collage etc for the first six weeks then in the second six weeks we are considering technology –the aim is to get them working in a creative way – they come with strong drawing and modeling skills that enable them to design in an unimpeded way and we are using Second Life to put the focus on design rather than the interface of a ‘big’ cad package.”

It’s something I shouldn’t have missed from the New Zealand Second Life scene because it’s so good. I take my hat off to them both.

Thanks to Dr Clare Atkins, SLENZ Project joint leader,  for the heads-up.