Making a Liveable ‘Place’: Content Design in Virtual Environments

Abstract

This paper argues that designers of virtual environments must not only design the context of their worlds (as architects do) but also assume at least partial responsibility for designing the content (as filmmakers do). The design of a virtual environment is, therefore, a unique task that combines the traits of both architects and filmmakers, a fact that has often been overlooked by designers of virtual environments. Only by taking responsibility for both context and content, and being cognisant of the affordances and limitations of the medium used, can virtual environment designers create a sense of place, which will be comparable, if different, to the sense of place engendered by physical environments.

Keywords:

• Content
• Context
• Place
• Architecture
• Film

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Digital Design Group of the University of California at Berkeley for providing enlightenment and critique during the working process of this paper.

Notes

[1] See, for example, Kalay et al., New Heritage.

[2] Many researchers from different disciplines have studied place and sense of place, such as Alexander et al., A Pattern Language; Altman and Wohlwill, Human Behavior and Environment; Belk, Attachment to Possessions; Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism; Canter, The Psychology of Place; Cooper Marcus, ‘Environmental Memories’; Dovey, ‘Putting Geometry in its Place’; Fishwick and Vining, ‘Toward a Phenomenology of Recreation Place’; Harrison and Dourish, ‘Re‐place‐ing Space’; Jackson, A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time; Mugerauer, Interpretations on Behalf of Place; Norberg‐Schulz, Genius Loci.

[3] Kalay and Marx, ‘Architecture and the Internet’, 230–40.

[4] There are different types of virtual environments. Some, such as video games, may be linked to user expectations and hence have more rules to follow. However, many other virtual environments, such as some virtual reality environments and 3D online worlds, do not have much socio‐cultural practice to follow. In this paper we discuss virtual environments in general but with a focus on the latter. In contrast to physical environments, they are really ‘a vast, new, unoccupied continent’.

[5] www.activeworlds.com [accessed 6 September 2007].

[6] www.secondlife.com [accessed 6 September 2007].

[7] See, for example, http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/01/infamous_sl_gan.html [accessed 6 September 2007].

[8] M. Moreno, Screenwriting Basics [accessed 15 September 2005], available from http://www.screenwriting.info.

[9] Bruno, Atlas of Emotion.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art.