Ludic-Architectures is a Virtual Summer School project funded by the British Council’s UK-China Outward Mobility Internationalisation Partnership Fund, developed in response to international COVID-19 restrictions.
Ludic-Architectures pdf flyer here.
The project builds on the foundation of a rich history of virtual collaboration, digital architectures and immersive experiences (https://i-dat.org/future-history/). It extends these into the development of a transnational collaborative and playful environment for students exploring Games Art and Design and Digital Media Design at Undergraduate and Masters level in the UK and China.
The project utilises a collaborative online Virtual Reality environment using game engine tools to extend participant’s skill sets, both technically and creatively, and fosters a virtual mobility, and shared vision for new digital innovations through a rubric of sharing, inclusive participation, and co-production.
Ludic-Architectures is a speculative design space that allows the collaborative building of a shared digital environment that can function in VR platforms, web browsers and Fulldome environments. This will be a playful space for making and exhibiting new digital work.
Physical 3D artefacts (digitally rapid prototyped and fabricated) made by participating students during the summer school workshop activities in their distributed geographical locations will contribute to and debates around about their creative evolving practice in the post Covid international landscape.
The project has a spine of online and studio based workshops, at each location, which drive the development of the Ludic-Architectures space
Students are drawn from different disciplines across the Chinese UK partnership and School of Art Design and Architecture at University of Plymouth including Architecture, 3D Design, Digital Media Design, Graphic Communication, Game Design, Media.
- Ludic-Architecture platform is developed using a networked multiuser game engine (Unreal)
- The initial workshop will brief students and create flexible groups around mixed skill sets which will ultimately collaborate to design and create the Ludic-Architectures
- The Ludic-Architectures space tests the game engine technologies that are already studied by each partner but will extend the reach of the local game engine into a multi-user online environment and allow for free exploration of the creative potential of the virtual environment.
- Three Parallel Summer School workshops (Architecture, Game Design, 3D Design) will take place over the summer, with in each partners studio space and in the evolving Ludic-Architectures
- Series of visiting speakers from UK and Chinese industries represented in the interdisciplinary mix of the Ludic-Architectures (Architecture, Design, Media) will contribute to the evolution through presentations of the inclusion of digital artefacts.
- Finally, the environment and the digital artefacts within it will be the shared exhibition of their creative endeavours.
LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES-EXHIBITION FLYER
LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES EXHIBITION:
Monday 25 July.
Presentation & launch: 18.00-20.00.
Open to the public from: 14.00.
Location: Real Ideas, Market Hall, Duke St, Devonport, Plymouth PL1 4PS
An exhibition of physical fragments and digital shrapnel from a creative explosion within the internationally networked LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES virtual environment.
Please register for the Exhibition opening here: https://realideas.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173630522.
LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES is a speculative design space that allows the collaborative building of a shared virtual environment.
The exhibition, at the Real Ideas Market Hall Fulldome, follows three weeks of online playful co-creation between students in Design, Art and Media, and Architecture located in China, UK, and the LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES virtual world.
Augmented by visiting speakers Professor Chris Speed, Dr Melanie Jackson, and Professor Neil Spiller and each area lead by Pete Davis (Design) Mike Lawson-Smith (Art & Media) and Andy Humphreys (Architecture), further details on the LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES Virtual Summer School can be found below…
Exhibition Client: https://i-dat.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/28/files/2022/01/2022.07.21.Client.zip
Ludic-Architectures single user demo…
LUDIC-ARCHITECTURES WORKSHOPS:
WEEK #1: 27/06 to 01/07/2022: Design (Graphic, Digital, Product, Interior, Spatial).
Zoom Link: https://plymouth.zoom.us/j/97798247871
MALLEABLE DIGITAL: WE LOVE DONUTS!!
How might we design digital objects from a variety of data, like walking, exercising, eating, sleeping, listening to music etc and place them in new exciting contexts and environments?
Session leader: Pete Davis.
Design Teams Week 1
Team 1 Yellow
Donglin Wang
Melody
Mingming Zhang
Oscar McNaughton
Sal
Team 2 Green
JNU-Danika
Lizzy Chalmers
Edward King
Wei Zhiying
Yuchen Hu
Yang Tongtong
Team 3 Blue
JNU-Anne
Wang Chenxi
Xiangyi Tang
Yichen Lu
Kyra Boyle
Team 4 Purple
Jessica
Ian Kok-Saw
Fengyan
Yixin Xu
Sam Pascal
Vincent Zhang
Schedule:
Monday 27 June:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Ludic-Architectures Introduction.
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Brief: MALLEABLE DIGITAL: WE LOVE DONUTS!!
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Tuesday 28 June:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Wednesday 29 June:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Visiting Speaker: Professor Chris Speed, Chair of Design Informatics, Edinburgh University.
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Pete Davis: MALLEABLE DIGITAL: WE LOVE DONUTS!!
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Thursday 30 June:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support
Friday 1 July:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Showcase Preparation.
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Showcase & Discussion.
12.00 UK / 19.00 China: End.
Showcase & Discussion.
Visiting Speaker:
Professor Chris Speed, Chair of Design Informatics, Edinburgh University.
Prof. Chris Speed FRSE, is Chair of Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh where he collaborates with a wide variety of partners to explore how design provides methods to adapt and create products and services within a networked society. Chris is Director for the Edinburgh Futures Institute, involving the transformation of the 22,000m2 Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, a Florence Nightingale hospital in the centre of Edinburgh, into a world leading centre for interdisciplinary teaching, research and innovation.
Software Download:
Instructions:
NB: None of these instructions will work without your University of Plymouth user id and password!
1: FortiClient-VPN-Guide: Windows SSL VPN User Guide (forticlient.com)
2: Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
3: Chinese version of Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
Software:
Chinese Particpants: A local link is provided by your Institutional coordinators for the The Ludic-Architectures AcrVR software download.
UK participants should use:
Version 1.0 (retired).
ArcVR.exe Ludic-Architectures install files.
You will need admin rights to install the .exe.
Contacts:
UK Participants should contact: thijs.mostert@plymouth.ac.uk
WEEK #2: 04/07 to 08/07/2022: Art and Media (Illustration Fine Art, Film and Photography).
Zoom Link: https://plymouth.zoom.us/j/97798247871
Hybrid-City-Scape
Responding to the traditions of landscape/cityscape in Art, Illustration and Photography this brief is a 3D interpretation of the cityscapes of Nanjing in China, and Plymouth in England. Using selected shapes of the buildings of these cities, you are required to create a new virtual city within the Ludic-Architectures environment, combining the shapes from one city with that of the other city. To do this, you will work in your team of 3/4 people, and as a team you will need to select a building of your choice and work together to reconstruct it as a hybrid Nanjing/Plymouth building to be placed within the Ludic-Architectures environment in which we are working.
Session leader: Mike Lawson-Smith
Design Teams Week 2
Team 1 Yellow
Luying Zhang
Yuqi Wang
Jess Heddges
Mohamed Elwakil
Team 2 Green
YuXuan Zhou
YinRan Wang
Melody
Chenshi
Daisy Grainger (only tues/wed)
Team 3 Blue
Boyang Cui
ShenJunZhe
Oliver Li
Summer Ashbury (except tues/wed)
Team 4 Purple
Yuxing Zhu
Yige Lu
Orion Cutter
Jiakai Yin
Schedule:
Monday 04 July:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Ludic-Architectures Introduction.
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Brief: Mike Lawson Smith presentation.
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Tuesday 05 July:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Wednesday 06 July:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Visiting Speaker: Dr Melanie Jackson Royal College of Art
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Mike Lawson-Smith: Project development and discussion.
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Thursday 07 July:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Mike Lawson-Smith: Work in Progress Presentations.
11.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support
Friday 08 July:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Project Summary.
Showcase & Discussion.
Visiting Speaker:
Visiting Speaker: Dr Melanie Jackson Royal College of Art
“Melanie’s multidisciplinary practice involves modes of non-fiction storytelling – through space/objects/text/moving image and sound.
Melanie was born in Hollywood, West Midlands. She now lives and works in London and attended LCC, Byam Shaw and the RCA and has recently completed a practice based PhD at the University of Reading.
In 2017/18 she published co-authored articles with Dr Esther Leslie in Parallax Journal, Effects Journal, the online journal Studies in the Maternal, and cabinet magazine. They have also co-authored a book Deeper in the Pyramid (2018), and have previously produced a comic The Ur-Phenomenon (2013) and a newspaper The Urpflanze (2010). They devised a series of performance lectures based on the book for the Delfina foundation (2016), UCL (2016), Birkbeck (2017) the Atlantic Project (2017), Lux (2017) and Primary (2018).”
Software Download:
Instructions:
NB: None of these instructions will work without your University of Plymouth user id and password!
1: FortiClient-VPN-Guide: Windows SSL VPN User Guide (forticlient.com)
2: Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
3: Chinese version of Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
Software:
Chinese Particpants: A local link is provided by your Institutional coordinators for the The Ludic-Architectures AcrVR software download.
UK participants should use:
Version 2.0 zip file can be downloaded from this link (please unzip).
You will need admin rights to install the .exe.
Contacts:
UK Participants should contact: thijs.mostert@plymouth.ac.uk
WEEK#3: 11/07 to 15/07/2022: Architecture (Urban Planning, Build Environment).
Zoom Link: https://plymouth.zoom.us/j/97798247871
The Ideal City: A collage in the virtual world…
Session leader: Andy Humphreys
Design Teams Week 3
Team 1 Yellow
Jaqueline Grace
Siting Chen
Jiayi Liu
Lan Yao
Team 2 Green
Harry Hooton
Wang Xiaomeng
Longxiang Li
Zhanghui Wang
Team 3 Blue
Stacy Dube
Ronghuiyu Li
Zhifan Zhai
Chris Phillips
Ya Hsien Chi
Team 4 Purple
Wei Lam Wong
Yuneng Jiang
Kaixuan Chen
Mia Steele
Cerys O’Brien
Schedule:
Monday 11 July:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Ludic-Architectures Introduction.
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Brief: Andy Humphrey presentation.
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Tuesday 12 July:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Wednesday 13 July:
9.00 UK / 16.00 China: Visiting Speaker: Professor Neil Spiller
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Andy Humphrey: Project development and discussion.
11.00 UK / 18.00 China: Technical/Creative Support.
Thursday 14 July:
10.00 UK / 17.00 China: Technical/Creative Support
Friday 15 July:
10.30 UK / 17.30 China: Andy Humphrey Project Presentations and Project Summary.
Showcase & Discussion.
Visiting Speaker:
Visiting Speaker: Professor Neil Spiller
Presentation: Soft Machines and Virtual Objects: how Cyberspace came into Architecture.
Neil Spiller is the former Hawksmoor Chair of Architecture and Landscape and Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, London. Prior to this, he was Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and Construction, and Professor of Architecture and Digital Theory at Greenwich University. Before that, he was Vice-Dean and Graduate Director of Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
He is on the editorial board of AD (Architectural Design). His architectural design work has been published and exhibited on many occasions worldwide. Since 1998, he has produced the epic COMMUNICATING VESSELS project.
Software Download:
Instructions:
NB: None of these instructions will work without your University of Plymouth user id and password!
1: FortiClient-VPN-Guide: Windows SSL VPN User Guide (forticlient.com)
2: Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
3: Chinese version of Ludic-Architecture Server Login Instructions.
Software:
Chinese Participants:
weblink：https://pan.baidu.com/s/12SUoIvNcZAPgv_h5R3gr8w
passcode：4vru
UK participants should use:
Version 3.0 zip file can be downloaded from this link (please unzip).
You will need admin rights to install the .exe.
Contacts:
UK Participants should contact: thijs.mostert@plymouth.ac.uk
Project Development:
Timeline: December 2021-July 2022
12/21-02/22:
Design and implementation of the prototype.
03/22:
Workshop extended requirements 2 days
05/22:
Workshop system testing 2 days
06/22:
3 parallel Workshops (3 weeks)
06-07/22:
Visiting Speakers Programme
07/22:
Fulldome and Virtual Exhibition (one week)
Context:
IVT: The IVT is a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of (im)material and imaginary worlds. The ‘Fulldome’ architecture now houses a duel high-resolution fish eye remote light engine projection system, sophisticated 10.1 audio system and customised computers to wrap data, models, video and images around its inner surface. The IVT is used for a range of learning, entertainment and research activities, including transdisciplinary teaching, bleeding edge research in modelling and data visualisation.
Murmuration: E/M/D/L presents: Liminal Spaces, Dream Collider, and Murmuration, the culmination of a EU funded collaboration between Canadian and European partners. This research project was carried out through eight international residencies and is presented in the Satosphere of Montreal’s Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Articulated through the fulldome environment as an instrument to explore transdisciplinary forms of artistic expression, these experiments oscillate between performance, interactive installation and immersive event.
Arch-OS: Arch-OS represents an evolution in intelligent architecture, interactive art and ubiquitous computing. An ‘Operating System’ for contemporary architecture (Arch-OS, ‘software for buildings’) has been developed to manifest the life of a building and provide artists, engineers and scientists with a unique environment for developing transdisciplinary work and new public art. The Arch-OS experience combines a rich mix of the physical and virtual by incorporating the technology of ‘smart’ buildings into new dynamic virtual architectures.
Quorumscape: QUORUMSCAPE integrates the Quorum algorithmic tools into a real-time geo-located CityScape simulation. Quorum is an algorithmic system that feeds off data generated by material and virtual environments and the physical and social behaviour of audiences. It incorporates bio-inspired algorithmic swarm decentralised decision making processes to generate a dynamic and evolving collective behaviour. It is a volatile system of stimuli and response that is manifest as data driven interactive objects, installations and immersive audio-visual experiences.
Digital Futures: The programme aims to reflect upon and actively engage with contemporary arts and technology practices. It is constantly upgraded to respond to changing cultural and technological developments, and is delivered through a combination online and offline activities (using streaming media, an interactive web site and online community tools and more traditional methods).
MEDIASPACE: The intent of ‘MEDIASPACE’, whether in its ‘dead’ paper-based form, or the ‘live’ digital forms of satellite and internet, is to explore the implications of new media forms and emergent fields of digital practice in art and design. MEDIASPACE was an experimental publishing project that explores the integration of print, WWW and interactive satellite transmissions. The convergence of these technologies generates a distributed digital ‘space’.
Sliding Scales: i-DAT & The Bartlett School of Architecture are collaborating on an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and Rapid-prototyping workshop to generate an exhibition to be installed in January 2007 at University College London. This continuing collaboration with Unit 20 of the Bartlett School of Architecture builds on last years Arch-OS workshop held in the IVT.
Immersive Media Lab:The Immersive Media Lab is a new digital initiative which sits alongside the Digital Fabrication Lab on the ground floor of the Roland Levinsky Building. These spaces are showcase statements for the School of Art Design and Architecture which celebrate a dynamic engagement with (post)digital innovation as a catalyst for creative production, playful experimentation, pedagogic invention and industrial engagement.
Partnership:
The Belt and Road Initiative.
China-Portugal Joint Laboratory of Cultural Heritage Conservation Science.
Dr Yuanyuan Mao:
Funded by the British Council: UK-China Outward Mobility Internationalisation Partnership Fund
In collaboration with Real Ideas [Market Hall Fulldome]:
Software by TEAM3Terms and Conditions:
Ludic-Architectures is a space for creative playfulness, collaboration and co-design. Mutual trust and respect for each other is a fundamental quality of these playful digital behaviours. Participants will contribute to Ludic-Architectures in accordance with the University of Plymouth's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion guidance and policies.
Software End-User License Agreement:
This software is the creation of Team3 LTD in collaboration with i-DAT. The user agrees not to alter, reproduce or distribute this software without the express written permission of Team3 LTD The user agrees not to sell, transmit, host or otherwise commercially exploit this application. The user must agree to the policies of their respective institution and follow them at all times when using this software, including any relevant policies on harassment and hate speech, which apply when using this software's in built messaging features.
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