It happened exactly 1 year, to the day I first contacted Jani Pirkola former project manager of the Realxtend team. I heard rumors late in 2007 that they had goals to accelerate the development of the ‘opensim‘ platform, and one of their priorities was 3D model imports. The conversation continued until a few weeks ago, when I received an e-mail from Jules Vos, founder of Visibuild, a company he founded aimed at leveraging and improving the capabilities of Realxtend, specifically targeting his efforts at architecture and the built environment.
He asked for …

The AIArchitect online resource for members of the American Institute of Architects recently published an excellent story about architecture in Second Life (read it here).
In it, they talk about the work of Guillermo Vasquez de Velasco, Assoc. AIA, who is the dean of Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning.  They also mention the work of my good friend Terry Beaubois, AIA, professor at Montana State University’s Creative Research Lab – (aka Tab Scott in SL) covered previously on The Arch here.
They also covered the work of another friend …

We really, really need your help on this one!  I am confident that if the readers of this blog collectively vote as a unified voice to push 3D Model Interoperability as a priority item for Linden Lab, we will be heard.  You all know that Importing and exporting models is currently the biggest bottleneck preventing architects and designers from using Second Life as a tool in professional practice, and Linden Lab’s public Jira system is the perfect way for us to make it clear that this is a must have …

It doesn’t appear to be published in an online edition yet, but will likely show up HERE when the time comes (the Spring edition is currently live).

Transcript of Gioacchino Laryukov’s presentation is below.  Transcript of the entire discussion can be found HERE.
“Giuseppe Terragni (1904-43) was an Italian architect who worked in the ’30’s during a period when others such as Sartoris, Cattaneo, Figini, Lingeri, Pollini were active; an era known as rationalism.  His best known works can be found in the city of Como, where he lived and worked during his brief life. You can find a listing of rationalist buildings in Como here: http://www.ordinearchitetticomo.it/itinerari.asp   The main works are: Edificio ad appartamenti Novocomum (1927-29), Casa …

….will be a headline on this blog someday. We’re not there (yet), but now that I have your attention, I have a favor to ask.
For the time being, let’s not focus on what we can’t do in Second Life, and take a look at what we can do there that we can’t as easily or as affordably do anywhere else. It isn’t that each of these points can’t already be done elsewhere, but now they can all be done in the same place, at the …

 
The Architecture Island annex is almost complete, and rental land will be available within the next few days!  Over half of it is already spoken for, but we still have a large 1/4 island lots available, as well as a handful of smaller 8,000 sqm parcels, and some 4,000 sqm parcels.
If you aren’t ready for a parcel of land to build on, but still want to be in on the action, check out the new arcspace build.  For a modest monthly fee you get a 2 story flat, adjacent to …

Very interesting article in The Guardian this month about architects, architecture and Second Life. Check it out HERE.

The new island, formerly known as ‘Lebenswelt’ was the prize I have had the honor of being awarded in the Cntrl-Shift-07 competition for their Bienial Pacific Students of Architecture Congress held in New Zealand.
My goal for the new island is to encourage the emergence of a new language of virtual architecture by maintaining Lebenswelt Island as a testing grounds and incubator for an ongoing, dynamic, and collaborative effort in tune with the stated objectives of the competition.
Everyone who entered the competition and wishes to continue their experiments with new ideas …

Read the full story here: The Underwire – Wired Blogs
If anyone can comment with the Landmark, it would be much appreciated!