Design Project 1

Title: Snowman’s Bar

Coordinate: Bassett 81, 67, 64 (Mature) – TCorp – Land in Bassett! (M)

Design Proposal

A social bar is a place in which people gather to have a drink and meet new people (or ‘catch-up’ with old people). Many bars have been made throughout the city and it is one of the most highly competitive social places during Friday nights in Sydney. All, if not, most of the bars are built with a ‘bar’, recreational activities (generally, pool tables and slot machines), social spaces (which is defined by tables and chairs), and a dance floor.

What keeps the customers from returning to these bars is their experience within those bars and this is affected by the environment. The environment defines a person’s interactivity and comfort with their surrounding. Before smoking was labelled as illegal in social bars/clubs, many new customers find it intolerable to deal with smokers and not having the liberty to confront them. Thus, these customers only revisit those tolerable bars with overruled smoking rules, as it has a better environment.

However, the creativity of the bar is only limited to what can be possibly done in the real world. The virtual world allows users to further furbish its attractiveness. An element of virtuality was discussed earlier, and it is to be used to help establish an ‘experience’ that would influence occupants to return, with the hopes of bringing new people along. This is the element of walking through walls. Because the virtual world allows avatars to walk through walls, it is a new experience (though it is contradictorily a cliché) for customers to interact with the bar. The bar would be built with a plasma door that becomes the only entrance for customers to enter. The entire building may be glowing (which is another element of virtuality) and transparent, customers will not be able to see clearly through. They would only be able to see dark, blurry shapes of the objects within it and question themselves as to what is really happening inside. Thusly, their curiosity is what pulls them in. And not having an actual door, the plasma door (or portal) is the only known entrance. The ability to walk through walls is a fantasized ability by people in the real world. When built as a door or portal, this ability can appear to give an outstanding effect.

The purpose is basically a bar, where people can just sit down and chat. What it does is to allow people to interact with others. If they are alone, it is possible to stand around and appreciate the works of art hung on the walls around them. It is a nice way to relax and take time out of the intense lifestyle outside. To reinforce this note, everything is slowed down the system due to the overload of information outside. Within this bar, it is only needed to load once as there are minimal information required to load (which is less ‘hectic’). Nonetheless, the purpose of this building is to remove oneself from an intense lifestyle. Because it is in Bassett (traffic-less suburban virtual place), the bar would serve as a gathering for neighbors, and just to ‘kick back and socialize’.

In conjunction to its purpose and environment, one must not forget that ’size does matter’. If one was to build an indoor recreational centre, they will definitely not build it with a 512sqm limit, but maximize the volume for comfortable (as aforementioned) usage. So for this reason, the bar would require a relatively large size as it would become a gathering for larger groups.

The idea came from a creation of the cartoonist Matt Groening, the Futurama series. A particular episode depicts the group of protagonists entering the internet via virtual devices. The chat-rooms are literally rooms along a large corridor. To enter these rooms, the protagonists had to walk through a portal/door. This idea of portal doors is used just to ‘abuse’ the notion of virtuality.

Within this design (titled: Snowman’s Bar), I created a fairly generic bar which allows maximum movement around the centre of the bar. Along the sides are miniature social spaces (as aforementioned); these places are where most people sit down, relax, and have a drink while chatting and meeting new people. This is the interactivity amongst avatars. There are a few virtual elements. The main one is the effect of transparency and glow on the walls. From an external point-of-view, by-passers will not be able to see inside crystal-clearly, but rather see only shadows of objects. All the images provided demonstrates how objects, whether it is stationery or animated, would appear from an external eye. The reason for glow is to attract people from a far distance. This effect is used in real-life, but in the form of neon lights, which consumes heavy amounts of energy. Another element is the abuse on ‘ghost’ ability, or, in other words, the ability to walk through walls. This is discussed earlier above, where the only way to enter the bar, is through the portal door. Nothing special, it is just to ‘abuse’ virtuality.

If not needed as a bar, neighbours can consider this space as a gathering for residential purpose, whether it is forming a mob or just town discussions (also mob related). In any sense, like the real-world, a bar can also be used as a function room. However, due to its size, this space is only limited to approximately 30 odd people. But since there is no roof, the limit is not defined.

What makes people return to this place? As once mentioned in a previous post, is its environment (also aforementioned) being enlighten and welcoming. A people can sit around and chat without being interrupt from the ‘intense’ outside world. Also one note is that the chat ranges in Second Life do not reach over 20m. Hence, there is a sense of privacy between inside and outside the building. Though of course, avatars can hold private chat-boxes with others.