The US Department of State hosted another panel discussion in Second Life this month, digging into a topic I think has great potential – ‘Virtual Worlds as Green Workplaces.’ Here is yet another outstanding machinima by Draxtor Despres, covering this exciting event:
Last summer, I wrote a series of posts around the topic of the virtual workplace Post #1, #2 and #3, and have often felt that virtual space is the ultimate in green design (what could be greener than not building anything at all?). Virtual worlds certainly consume a great deal of energy, yet pale in comparison to the environmental impact of bringing the same number of people together into the same place in the physical world.
Products like Immersive Workspaces, built on the Second Life platform, are making virtual workplaces even more feasible by incorporating a 2-D web center of tools and applications on top of the virtual world experience. Linden Lab’s new Media API will certainly facilitate deeper levels of in-world collaboration, and obviously their Second Life Enterprise offering is aimed directly at making Second Life ‘ready for work’.
I’m still trying to understand how or if architectural experience and training can or should transcend physical worlds, and if architects will have anything to say about the actual design or integration of these virtual spaces that are already replacing physical buildings. However, I find so much more understanding, energy and exploration from game designers, 3D modelers, web strategists, graphic designers and artists than I do from architects that I’m really starting to wonder… and wander.
Time will tell, but this event was certainly a seminal moment for the future ‘green’ virtual workplace, and I look forward to more panels to come!
