Architecture: The Neualtenburg Projekt

Experimental architecture comes to SL.

This is a slight modification of a thread that was started in the "New in Second Life" forum. I've resubmitted it here as it may be of interest to those who are looking to participate in some experimental architecture.

Neualtenburg Proposal
Neualtenburg FAQ


The Neualtenburg Projekt proposal has been accepted by Haney! We are currently seeking interested land investors, architects, artisans, and politicians to join the Neualtenburg group.

The Neualtenburg Projekt has been created to meet Haney Linden's challenge of creating a compelling destination for members of SL which beautifies and preserves the snow sims. It is called a "Projekt" as it goes beyond a typical group or themed SL build. The goal is to create an experimental community of artistic, ambitious, talented individuals who want to explore the limits of architecture, culture, and politics in Second Life. The Neualtenburg Projekt is comprised of the following three components:

Architecture
The city will be modeled after a medieval Bavarian city with postmodern architectural elements in the Anzere snow sim. Most of SL is based upon the precepts of modern architecture, where land and buildings are dominated by the rectangle. One of the goals of this project is to create a city which replaces orthogonality with organic and to bring together the medieval and modern.

Culture
The city will be a nexus for progressive social experimentation in Second Life including modern art (sculpture, scripting, movie making, role playing), political organizations (a senate, constitution, and bill of rights), and religious organizations (a church with a permanent staff).

Politics
The city will be based on a democratic socialist republic with city planning and taxation on sales to support public maintenance, landmarks, and art. The republic will be different from other groups as after completion the republic will be managed by democratically elected representatives.

LAND: We need land-tier contributions from members of the group and from land investors to reach our 32,768 m2 requirement before we can take possession of our land. See the FAQ to see our land acquisition progress so far. If you or someone you know would like to be involved in this one-of-a-kind project, please contact us.

Read more in the FAQ or see the proposal for information on the architecture. Contact Ulrika Zugzwang, Kendra Bancroft, or post here with questions or to request an interview.

~Ulrika~

Ill help

I wanted to give this a bump, as we've acquired our land and have begun building in the sim of Anzere!

The city of Neualtenburg will be a combination of traditional Bavarian medieval architecture and experimental postmodern architecture. I need both those who have a flair for meticulously reproducing existing buildings and those who want to create truly unique structures. Come be a part of a wonderful and unique collaborative experiment!

The building guide, which is still under construction, can be found here.

If you're interested, please contact me by email (preferred) or by IM.

~Ulrika~

Where the hell have you been Ulrika, I NEED to talk to you!!

Can't wait to see how this all comes together!

Sorry! I'm in the process of finishing up a move and things are busy at work. I'm trying to log in daily between 20:00 and 22:00 PDT (03:00 and 05:00 GMT) to work on the project.

Send me an email or post in the Neualtenburg forum to schedule a meeting with me on Saturday or Sunday.

~Ulrika~

If not for the political structure built into the plan (in my opinion, anyone who tries to introduce an artifical government where none is needed should have their heads examined), I'd have been very interested in joining and helping out. Other than that, it sounds like a very interesting experiment.

Good luck on it!


- Newfie Pendragon

Newfie,
I joined up just for the Bavarian recreation. The town it is based on is very sentimental to me due to the times I visited when stationed there. I plan on firmly resisting/ignoring the political aspect. Sorry Ulrika I know you were hoping to convert me.

I just wanted to follow up on the architectural aspect of the Neualtenburg build in Anzere.

Things are progressing well and on schedule. The super-detailed city layout has been finalized and building has begun. Excellent progress has been made on the Church and Spital region although builds are still a work in progress. Smaller low-prim test structures are popping up as place holders in the city giving it the desired feel of a dense Bavarian medieval fortress city in some areas.

The greatest challenge faced so far is the shortage of prims. Because this is a dense city, the prim-to-building ratio is incredibly low, forcing us to push most complexity into the textures. As the city nears completion we hope to iterate over the structures and textures to improve their quality and add nuance to differentiate the buildings.

We have also created a vendor which applies a city service fee to sales and allows splitting revenue between different players by different amounts. The goal is to provide funding for city services and to encourage citizen collaboration on products. Further, as a service to citizens, we have detailed and open vendor sales information online. When the infrastructure is complete, we will have additional wares for sale and events held by all citizens. Shortly after the first of the year we plan to elect a our first representative government.

~Ulrika~

Very cool Ulrika!

Is that vendor sales info app available anywhere?

Unfortunately it is home grown and not open source. In the city I plan to release all technology which facilitates political activism (voting machines, web-based voting tools, communication tools, etc.) as open source but none of the technology which facilitates commerce.

The reason is that the city exists to empower individuals by helping them function as a collective through elected representatives and to earn a profit without being exploited by mall owners. If we released the commerce technology, it would invariably fall into the hands of those who would wish to use it as a means of exploitation of those outside of the city. The opposite is true of the activist technology.

~Ulrika~

I gotcha. I just liked it as a handy way for me to keep track of my sales. Kudos on a job well done with it.

The only thing that I didn't like was the listing of customers. I don't know how comfortable I'd be in having everyone who views it able to see my purchases.

Yes. Public access of private data will vanish after the login script is in place and the code goes beta. City related finances, though, will always remain transparent to citizens.

If you like such a service, you are always welcome to join the city as a citizen! You will have free use of the vendor/server infrastructure as well as all other benefits that come with being part of a large group of collaborative artisans.

~Ulrika~

Your work is beautiful Ulrika, a nice consistant and continuous zone is just the sort of thing we're going to try to do in the DarkLife village on Navora.

If you ever get short of land/money but not inspiration, let me know and we'll sort out some more land to build another little DL town or something hehehe.

PC

Well I'd be honored to work with a creative person such as yourself in the future. After the city is complete and has stabilized politically, I might just look you up.

~Ulrika~

Besides the beautiful concept and work on the Neualtenberg Projekt, any mind that can come up with the fabulous Chicken Hat deserves my support. I will be donating land to this right away....

...and thank you!

Thank you! I noticed you had bought a bunch for what I thought might be a party. I hope that you all had as much fun as we did during Oktoberfest.

If you're interested in joining the group I can send you an invitation. Just IM me in world.

~Ulrika~