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Sustainable Design in Architecture is illustrated here by the Phare ("Beacon") Tower scheduled to be completed near Paris, France in 2012. The 300-meter, 68-story office tower includes sustainable design features such as a double skin to maximize energy efficiency, a clear glazed facade to increase exposure to natural daylight, and a generator wind farm. Montana State University architecture graduate Patrick Dunn-Baker was on the Morphosis firm competition team whose design won the contract.
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Tab Scott aka Terry Beaubois, RL architect and Director of  the Montana State University Creative Research Lab, reviews Team SL's scale model of West Oakland, California and presentation boards in the background. Students and faculty conduct classes and research in Second Life at two Sims owned by the lab. Students identified several recommendations including re-routing truck traffic out of residential neighborhoods, thereby helping to reduce carbon emissions (currently the highest in California).
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"Team SL" holds a collaborative meeting in the Creative Research Lab, Montana State University. Shown here are Ryan Johnson, Doug Halsey, Tracy Peters, Corwin Dormire, Scott MacBeth and Jesse Adler. The class is ARCH 551 Sustainable Community Design and Advanced Technology. The topic is the West Oakland Project in which students visited a real world community to research and apply sustainable design principles.
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ARCHITECTURE PRINCIPLE "SUSTAINS" SL INTEREST!
BY SITEARM MADONNA STAFF WRITER

"Good for the long haul"... that is what "sustainable design" means in architecture, technology, arts and community. And it is the driving interest of SL resident Tab Scott, aka Terry Beaubois, RL architect and Director of the Creative Research Lab, Montana State University.

"The mission of our lab and classes is to discover, teach, apply and evolve the principles of sustainable design," says Scott. "Sustainable design is the incorporation of elements that increase a project’s viability for long-term existence. For sustainable design to be successful it requires a multi-disciplinary, collaborative approach including architecture, art, music, theatre, media, technology and humanities."

Scott's credentials are impressive. He has 30 years professional experience in architectural practice including working on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the San Francisco Ballet Building, numerous high-tech facilities, medical facilities, resorts, hotels, and single family residences. And oh yes, consultant to NASA for space station design, orbiting lab design, and research on aerospace technology applications to the Building Industry.

In addition, Scott has a 30 year involvement introducing the use of computers, internet, CD-ROMs, Virtual Reality software, web-sites, DVDs and immersive 3D to the Building Industry through lectures at colleges and universities, and national and international conferences. It is no surprise to find him to be an active and enthusiastic resident of Second Life!

Why does Sustainable Design interest Scott now? Says Scott, "Sustainable design is worth studying because the quality of life and the future of humans on planet Earth depend on our understanding of sustainable design issues and how and when to incorporate them into projects and communities. It contributes towards the more effective and efficient use of resources – both human resources and natural resources, energy, and materials."

Sustainable design is a concept whose time has come. "In December, 2006," says Scott, "Our students presented their sustainable design projects to professors and professionals for review and comments. The professionals said that every student in the class was guaranteed employment. These talents are needed in their firms and they will hire people who have the familiarity and experience."

Because of the groundbreaking nature of the lab's research, Scott has been able to form research relationships with companies including Google (Google Earth), Adobe (PhotoShop), and Linden Lab (SL Campus Program). Scott recently had another review meeting with Linden Lab this month. "We have had a very productive relationship with LL since 2005," says Scott.

Adobe recently featured Scott aka Beaubois in a full page advertisement highlighting his use of PhotoShop to create compelling architectural images combining both RL photos and CAD (Computer Aided Design) designs for homes.

Later this year, Scott will be presenting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February, and has been asked to speak at a conference in the United Nations in November. His work with Second Life and Google Earth for fostering architectural collaboration is featured in the January issue of 'Architectural Record' magazine, the leading professional architectural magazine in the US.

Are there historical examples of sustainable design in real life? "Anything that has existed a long time, and is still functioning, has elements of sustainability to it, or it wouldn’t still be here," says Scott. "Many scholars consider the town of Jericho, on the west bank of the Jordan River, to be the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. It currently has around 19,000 residents."

"The oldest continuously inhabited village in North America is Old Oraibi. This Hopi village, located on top of Third Mesa, came into being around 1050 A.D. Cadiz, Spain is thought to be the oldest inhabited city in Europe, dating back to the Phoenicians, who first established a post here in 1,100 BC."

"There are lessons to be learned about aspects of sustainability from those historic locations, although we may not strive to re-create those exact conditions elsewhere."

Beaubois teamed with Architecture Professor Ralph Johnson to teach MSU students a checklist for long term design that they called "Elements of Sustainability". These include: "Financial / Economic, Energy, Resources, Materials and Products, Cultural, Human-Nature Connection, Security, Education, Civic Engagement and Wayfinding (Signage, Visible Doorways, Not Getting Lost)."

Are there current examples in real life? "There are many," says Scott. "One of the most significant internationally is Huangbaiyu Village -- the development of an entire new community is serving as a national prototype for the design of a sustainable village in China."

When was Sustainable Design invented and who invented it? Scott replies, "It’s more of a concept than an 'invention' per se -- a way of thinking that appears throughout history. The discovery of the uses and management of fire, the building of the first crude buildings and villages, the planting of crops -- all required that people think ahead and think about how to best sustain their community."

"Sustainable design was as significant a factor in Dynastic Egypt as is it today. It appears in contemporary works such as R. Buckminster Fuller's 'Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth', Stephen Kellert's 'Building for Life', and Richard Register's 'Ecocities'."

How did Scott become interested in using Second Life for architecture? "I have been a resident since June 2005," says Scott. "I read about SL in 'WIRED' magazine and was attracted by the possibility for immersive 3D on a personal computer with cross-platform collaborative building and object creation."

"What keeps me here, in addition to all that," continues Scott, "Are the relationships I now have with some of the most creative, talented, intelligent, interesting, funny people that I have ever met, combined with the potential for SL being one of the most powerful tools available to an architect."

Scott has not been reticent about sharing his enthusiasm for SL. "An article about our work in SL just went out to 120,000 architects in the January issue of Architectural Record magazine. Last summer the 1.2 million readers of Popular Science read about our work in SL."

"I just presented in November to the organization for the 120 Deans and Directors of Architectural Schools in North America. I hope we are accurately portraying our experience and what we think the potential is for SL, so that people can arrive at their own conclusions as to whether SL is a software platform they should consider."

"The Creative Research Lab owns two private islands on which we conduct our research classes. It’s an immersive 3D environment where I can visit with students and monitor their projects. It doesn’t replace CAD, but it’s a supplement for our technology that helps us learn to collaborate.”

"Tours are given by appointment. It’s like most University research lab space: when we’re working we need to have the environment conducive for work. The students can go onto the main grid after and during class as they need, just like they can leave the RL Lab/classroom and go around Bozeman [Montana]."

So what's next for Scott? "The key challenge in RL is successfully having the concept of Sustainable Design understood by design, engineering and construction teams as well as clients. First, to understand that applicable principles exist; Second, to understand the reasons and benefits for pursuing a course of sustainable design; and Third, to collect information to validate and verify sustainable design elements and their effects. Our lab is looking at this area."

Scott continues, "I am deeply interested in researching the principles of sustainable design as they apply to Second Life projects. They would apply to sim planning and design, landscape terraforming and structure building, community planning and design and redesign, and successful concepts for operation after construction."

"In SL we see numerous examples of builds that are completely unused, unvisited, or unoccupied 99.9% of the time. I think that some sims are charming and part of that charm is that they are not crowded like a Tringo parlor on camp chair night. But, many land and sim owners are not experiencing the number of visitors that they would like to have visit."

"To be sustainable, unless it is a stated goal that noone would visit, key factors involve those elements that engage the appropriate number of people to visit, remain, and revisit. Careful consideration of these issues prior to slapping up prims, and then integrating that thinking into the planning, design, and building of any build, will increase a projects’ sustainability."

Interested residents may learn more by sending an IM to Tab Scott in world, or an email to tbeaubois@montana.edu.

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