Book Three: Senses of Place and Space

Short Description:
Today, as the increasing accessibility, prevalence, and affordability of VR technology grows, so does a need to revisit theories of virtual space. Virtual Interiorities brings together scholars from the allied fields of built environment, humanities, art, and media. This collection of essays catalogs the moments of collision and collusion between parallel universes of spatio-visual media as they shift into and extend one another.

Long Description:
Contemporary virtual reality is often discussed in terms of popular consumer hardware. Yet the virtual we increasingly experience comes in many forms and is often more complex than wearable signifiers. This three-volume collection of essays examines the virtual beyond the headset. Virtual Interiorities offers multiple, sometimes unexpected entry points to virtuality—theme parks, video games, gyms, pilgrimage sites, theater, art installations, screens, drones, film, and even national identity. What all these virtual interiorities share are compelling cultural perspectives on distinct moments of environmental collision and collusion, liminality, and shifting modes of inhabitation, which challenge more conventional architectural conceptions of space. Senses of Place and Space steps beyond environments to look more closely at inhabitation, time, non-space, and placelessness. Each piece gathered in this final volume touches on how we exist—or might exist—in emerging virtual constructs, as well as how those constructs shift our perceptions through fluidity, pervasiveness, and altered vantages.

Word Count: 189719

ISBN: 978-1-387-49250-3

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Scientific research and design is traditionally made to be published in books or magazines by use of text and images. The arrival of digital media and internet changed this dramatically and allowed new possibilities and far better accessibility of this work. Be this as it may, it is still paramount that the accuracy and completeness of published scientific work is maintained. This course will focus on this integrated concept, the learning of how to successfully make and publish your own website. In 6 lectures the several aspects of traditional scientific research will be treated by using the contemporary media. The course has the following study goals, that correspond with the given assignments and lectures: publishing own study and design work; making your work retrievable for others by use of key words; making use of digital media to describe own work; describing and evaluating of own work; making a bibliography and iconography; intrepretenting an image as a scientific document;describing in key words; compare images scientifically; deducting design types from image comparison; deducting design concepts from image comparison; deducting design models from image comparison; deducting design programs from image comparison; integrating different design concepts and becoming acquainted with research methods; defining an object of research, problem field, target field, design tools, own competence and context of research; formulating a site, context factors, motivation, design program, contribution, intended results and planning; justifying, referring and concluding of own work; giving and receiving professional critique.

In this lesson students are introduced to Architect, Jeremy Peang-Meth. Mr. Peang-Meth was asked to design a local, renewable energy source for building located in the heart of New York City. While the tall buildings surrounding the site caused some obvious problems, there were also some benefits to the site. Students are asked to consider the constraints posed by the location of the building and then, based on their analysis of those constraints, to find a roof location that will provide good energy capture from the wind. After they have made that choice, students are invited to view Mr. Peang-Meth’s solution as he presents it in the provided video.

After most of the city was flattened by a tornado, Joplin, Missouri’s Mercy Hospital built a new facility, incorporating features to reinforce its resistance to wind.

Zaha Hadid, MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, 1998 -- 2009 (opened 2010), Via Guido Reni, Rome. A conversation between Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Steven Zucker and Beth Harris.