Idea for Group House/Build

NOTE: I would have put this in the building forum, but it would also involve scripting, texturing, and a lot of people. So I posted it here. If it bugs anyone, let me know and I'll post elsewhere in the future.

I was watching this tv show and I had a great idea. I envision this large house, occupying 4000+ meters of land, with very modern architecture. It would feature large social and meeting areas and lots of comfortable seating areas. It would have a sandbox. And it would be a work of art.

I was thinking, what if 8 or so people got together and built this house/estate, with shared group land, skills, money, and time. People interested in actually using and sharing the finished build. It would be more for the sheer fun of actually building something like that.

I am not ready to actually start this project, just throw around some ideas. Is anyone interested? What could a group house/store/build feature? How would the logistics work out? I am just throwing the idea out there. Let me know what you think.

As someone with an urban planning career lined up someday, shared public spaces are a big thing to me. It would indeed be fun to build, although the logistics would be horrible (any group project tends to fall apart in SL rather quickly).

I have no land to donate, but I wouldn't mind helping in some sort of capacity.

LF

goshua, a group of us are just wrapping up a similar project in Dari. It's called "House 1" and is going up for vertu auction in the next vertu auction. perhaps it may provide some insight for your project.

the basis of our design intentions was that SL is essentially a medium for human interaction. we concieved of the a dwelling in SL as a stage for intersubjective events. function was not so important as was the framing of spaces, one to another and thier role as a backdrop. so we tried to create various different ambiances that were independant yet interelated. from our experience, succesful builds in SL generally feature these qualities

our project was managed in the fashion of architect as project manager but in a relatively passive role. the house was designed into the site context and the spaces framed by the 'architect'. the designers then assembled to discuss which aspect of the house they would be in charge of fleshing out and there was some back and forth during the process amongst many of the designers for critiquing each other s work.

the result of having each area intrusted to a different designer on the one hand made the work flow much smoother by distributing decision making rather than running it heirarchically, but on the other and it resulted in very different spaces. in our case i think generally we prefer the contrasting of spaces over homogeneity across the build that might be more likely in a more heirarchical and controlled work flow.

You think so? I mean, Ouranos group owns at least one private island and has done some amazing stuff. Spellbound events created Oz. What are the problems you forsee with that?

- quite often, established designers will tend to have very differing strategies and criteria for success.

- i find communicating "design" very difficult in text and without notepads. although prims are pretty fast, it's not the same as a face to face discussion with gestures and sketches.

- you need an extended time frame because as you add more members, there is more players not interacting directly more often because of differing login times.

I have to agree. I was thinking, I can whip up a webstream of my desktop so we can share a whiteboard. There are several witeboard sharing programs that allow real time group sketches. I could maybe use one of those. As for gestures, short of motion capture, I dont see how that can be done.

A long term project, unless given very strict guidelines/rules/deadlines, will almost invariably fall apart. It's a social weakness of the SL world.

Ouranos has made some incredible stuff, yes... but the central idea has been revamped at least twice now. First it was a bustling metropolis... then it was going to be a single, large Arcology.. now it's some sort of underwater complex thing.

The main point is, there has to be leadership. There has to be DECISIVE decisions. There has to be pushings for deadlines,. for finishing their part of the bargain.

Otherwise it'll just fall apart.

LF

The odds that a project or group falls apart will double with each additional person added to the team.

Generally I think it's best to have 1 builder, 1 scripter, 1 landscaper and so on.. it helps a lot with consistency if a single person does all the building and less chance of disagreements if each person has their own area of responsibility.


Jai