Blue-News

First Look: Soswaewon Garden

// October 30th, 2009 // Cities

Soswaewon Garden

Soswaewon Garden is another new “city” in Blue Mars, yet it’s not exactly a city.  Apart from the masses of trees in the surrounding landscape, Soswaewon isn’t exactly a garden either; there aren’t any flowers or ornamental shrubs; the garden landscaping is somewhat lackluster (no gardening going on here!).  If anything, it most resembles a Japanese garden, though there aren’t any of the typical garden furniture or garden statues associated with those types of gardens.

Soswaewon is more like a museum for sculptures, an art gallery of sorts, but there are no paintings here, just a sculpture or two and some architecture.  The garden sculptures are all loosely grouped in the arrival area,  and the architecture is in a somewhat typical traditional Asian style.  Of course, the artwork on display isn’t traditional at all; it would better classify as abstract art, maybe even modern art.

One thing about Soswaewon Garden is that the garden design is a little difficult for the uninitiated to navigate; the landscaping definitely needs work in order to enable an easier and smoother way of viewing the artists work.  However, considering the short amount of time the space was created in (six weeks)  and the creators themselves (students unfamiliar with the Blue Mars workflow) it’s actually an early testament to the power and accessibility of the Blue Mars platform.

The students’ instructor has this to say about the project:

The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s School of Architecture dedicated a summer Design studio to exploring an architect’s role in the creation of Atmosphere within the virtual world.  Our project scope was framed within the unique and treasured opportunity of participating in the 2009 Gwangju Biennale, in South Korea, and incorporating a design process employing the most progressive Virtual World developed today, BlueMars by Avatar-Reality.inc.

Students began by selecting passages from Kim Inhoo’s poem about the 15th century Soswaewon Garden that resonated with them personally to inspire the design of a sculpture.  Students were directed to design not through the typical formal process of organization, plan and section, but rather through perception.  Computer modeling with cutting-edge graphics allow the students to envision their projects as a series of events; approach, rest, and departure.  Program for their Biennale Cube installation was then further inspired by the three strata’s of the Soswaewon Garden; the upper, middle and lower each representing a unique manifestation of “Rest” within Korean culture.

Students simultaneously investigated natural patterns and their ability to directly conduct design and construction through computer manufacturing.  The final product of this studio is a collaboration of Soswaewon’s history; today’s most progressive computing power, and tomorrow’s architects.  We hope you enjoy and are inspired by their products.

Considering most of the students were only familiar with  the Google Sketchup and Rhino 3D modeling programs, and had to be taught how to use the Blue Mar Sandbox editor from scratch, we think it’s a brave and noble achievement in pioneering educational backed builds within the Blue Mars community.

An Example of the Students' Work

It’s known quite broadly that Second Life is used by educators, but it’s even more exciting  to see that educators are already pursuing Blue Mars as a viable platform to incorporate classroom learning in a space that’s accessible, global, and growing.

Now that you have a bit more background behind Soswaewon Garden, we encourage you to visit this virtual, online art gallery of sorts again with all this in mind!