Public Space: Digital vs. Physical

This is more of an inquiry than anything else...

In SL there seems to be a distinct relationship of all built things to their RL counterpart. Our architecture, spaces... always calling back to their physical predecessors. I'm somewhat stuck on the issue that this brings up:

Should we do more to innovate, or should we recreate what we know?

This was really hit home for me in the recent 'State of Play' design competition calling for proposals/projects that did something to foster personal interaction/public space/etc. The entries, for the mostpart, directly reflected environments that we experience daily. I, for one, was a --little-- disappointed. Again, it's not that I find recreation to be the lesser of the two. But I can't help but wonder if we're missing something huge here.

Then again, I'm relatively new to SL. Maybe I just haven't come across alternatives.
Thoughts? Thanks!
jr

Ultimately what fostews intereaction and makes public space and builds community are human issues not technological ones. Whether SL is innovative or simply recreates in terms of architecture is merely window dressing. The signifigance of space is that it fosters human intereaction. A recreation of a medeival bavaria town that fosters participation in a virtual environment from all its memebers is far more effective than and empty spance made of streams of numbers to be innovative.

What use is a public space that noone uses? Ultimaltey the limits on innovation are about human issues, and not about technology. This is the point entilrey missed by teh technocractic psuedo intellectuals that judged the competition. They have the hubris to beleive that thier technology will alter human understanding, when ten thousand years of technological development has proven time and again that ultimately humanity will win out.

Dowhatchalike, kid. The rest will follow.

Back in the day, there were two sims with everything built to GINORMOUS scale, like your av was the size of an ant or something. I think they're gone though.

My hint would be to start going through Snapzilla's catalogue of resident photos and look for cool places to check out. Shack Dougall takes the most of straight-up interesting places to go. Wish I had more sim names for you to visit off the top of my head that are bending the RL rules.

Nowall and Backstage, owned by Edgware Marker, built by Starax Statosky and His Grace

Just remember - things come and go. What you see around you is not all of what has been created. People experiment with building different things at different times. The "normal" things that get built are sometimes built by those who have never seen that supposedly ordinary thing. We all have different taste and interests and those change and evolve. Build something extraordinary, go see some amazing builds, or wait for the next amazing build to come along - but I don't think we need to worry. Follow your interests and you can't go wrong.

THAT'S IT

I kept wanting to call it "Backdoor" but I knew that wasn't right.

And eggsackly what is wrong with that ??

It's an interesting question indeed.

When I am building a gadget I always find myself doing the same thing with the screen or display: Pixels and/or scanlines. Now, pixels and scanlines aren't necessary -- we're just talking about textures. Yet, digital displays are familiar to us from the decades of life we've spent in the physical reality. Part of those physical displays are the imperfections of scanlines and pixels.

Part of re-creating things with real-world inspiration is practical. What you're trying to build may simply be best suited by structures that are familiar to you in the real world and which have been pioneered and upgraded for hundreds of years. Another reason is stylistic. A given structure or design may carry moods from the physical world.

We've been doing this with computers for awhile. Our computers can index and sort their contents very rapidly and among innumerable criteria. Yet, we use the physical analog of folders/directories, which are a holdover from physical filing systems that just aren't as efficient as what we can now accomplish with computers. With GMail, Google is making some inroads in changing this antiquated means of data structuring.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. Experiment with new ideas and means of navigation amogn structures. Just make sure that usability takes the top priority. There's nothing sillier than an enormous SL mall with only two entrances and a roof that you can't fly through.

I suppose the bigger question/issue would be taking a look at WHAT elements are required within a certain building type, but related to the environment of SL... which is moving to a different topic alltogether.
jr

An SL mall with a no-fly-through roof and only ONE entrance would be sillier.

A mall with ZERO entrances and the land set to restrict access by anyone would be even sillier still.

Possibly, a mall with no entrances that used llPushObject to make the attempted customers have to relog, thus engendering long term ill will against the owner, might be even sillier still.

I ran into a green-lined parcel the other day - with something for sale on it. Now THAT'S pretty silly. I'd completely forgotten the green line thing ever existed.

Yes here in Alabama we call it "Backward."