Explorations in Data Visualization: a VR Webspace for Nasdaq Corporation

Imagine for a moment you want to find information on the architecture of ancient Rome. You sit in front of your computer, put on your VR glasses, set your motion tracking device, and log in. A glowing computer-generated environment fades in around you. To the bottom of your perimeter of vision appears a console asking if you would like to begin. You tell it you would like to proceed to the .edu quadrant. Instantly the neon lines around you blur as you're whisked along past ads, sectors, and towering cities of data at blinding speed. When your eyes are able to focus you find yourself floating to a halt in the .edu quadrant.

All around are walls of light and shadow towering high into the electric night. There is evidence of streets, or things reminiscent of streets, only no pavement. Points of light shoot across your periferal and off into the distance signifying the presence of other users searching the quadrant. Shapes in the distance glow and change color. Electric data displays blaze up-to-the-minute logistic reports across neon structures. Crystal spires rising high above nebulous data hum advertise new attractions.

These are the virtual presences of colleges, institutions, and organizations from around the world. You can simply peruse the area or at any time call upon the help of an AI (artificial intelligence)bot. You summon a bot with your console and one appears before you (can take the appearance of whatever or whomever you like). You tell it you are looking for information on ancient Rome, specifically architectural.

The bot does a search, returns relevant information, and shows you how to get there or takes you there itself. Next moment you are basking in the cavernous spaces of the United European Institution for Cultural . . . whatever . . . however, this isn't any usual library or museum for the very definition and structure of these institutions have changed with the advent of cyberspace. Now exhibits explain themselves, stories unfold around you allowing direct participation, and books become something you can read and/or enter.

Your book, for instance, is one on the architecture of ancient Rome. You call it in the institution's database. It can come to you or you can travel to it (for the sake of exploration). It doesn't reside on a shelf, but rather awaits you in a chamber. You enter the chamber which is some place that has been designated in the institution's webspace as "the place where you can be left alone with your "book" and where you enter it. However, you don't only have to read about ancient Rome. Now you can go there. So you do.

First you enter the book and are greeted with an introduction as brief or extended as you like. Suddenly, before your eyes, ancient Rome, or rather a computer-generated replica of it, "materializes" before you. Since photorealism is now possible in VR everything is life-like down to the Romans walking along the streets, the merchants at their stands, and you disguised in your toga and sandals, if you so desire. You can run your fingers across textures becuse you can actually feel things with your VR gloves and their sensory feedback.

You can feel yourself walk into objects because of the sensory feedback of your data suit. This "Roman" experience can also be taylored to your preferences and requirements. You can turn off the people. You can deactivate force feedback. You can superimpose a model of ancient Rome over modern Rome and have the ruins reconstruct themselves before your very eyes...

Today surfing the web is like being in a city that you can only see one room at a time. With no broader reference to your context, you quickly become lost. Similarly navigating from one website to another, due to lack of contextual reference, often leaves us feeling like unwitting participants in some twisted experiment: inadequate search engines which turn up millions of results upon query, webpages crammed with unintelligable masses of text and images, and wayward links and ads. Finding information on today's web is usually hit or miss.
This sense of vertigo when searching the world wide web results from trying to navigate a system with inherent spatial qualities using flatland techniques. From a practical standpoint, a three-dimensional arrangement of large databases such as internets, intranets, and portals provides a venue through which more effective methods of navigation could be implemented that better cater to the human senses.

All institutions and businesses, and many people, will want a presence in cyberspace. For businesses that will mean a "headquarters" of sorts. These headquarters will handle commerce and trade, business meetings, customer services, etc. in virtual facilities appropriately designed for the company's specific needs. These will be dynamically generated data driven structures in which the architecture forms itself in response to changes in the company's unique data. For example, a company like Barnes and Noble might use books sold, best buy days, best sellers, available stocks, hiring rates, etc. As best buy days change, a portion of the cyberstructure may fluctuate against a meter providing immediate visual understanding of current best buy days.

Take the Nasdaq stock exchange, for example. The stock market is by nature the most dynamic real world mainstream data system. This will help demonstrate more readily the uses and benefits of 3d web theory and why architecture in cyberspace should be driven and even "designed" by the data systems it represents. Cyberspace is a dynamic space charged by an ever-evolving information society. Everything we consume in cyberspace is information. Thus as cyberspace is an information space so should the architecture of cyberspace be "information architecture" -- dynamic, fluid, always evolving.

From a theoretical standpoint, a spatial arrangement of large databases, such as the World Wide Web, makes it easier to locate specific information. As it currently stands, we must use inadequate search engines that turn up millions of results upon query. We may try to refine our search, but we often we never quite find the information we are searching for. Many times we also find ourselves getting so off-put by stray links, ads, and other distractions that, by time we realize we have strayed, we cannot remember how to get back to where we were or what it was we were looking for.

Such problems denote a gap between computer interface and human perception. One large reason for this gap is that the brain exists naturally in a 3D environment for which it was designed. Implicit in this space/time existence is the ability to completely process its environment through taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight. Computers, however, have been largely impotent in effectively utilizing these receptors to the brain creating a gap which we have all experienced at one time or another – fumbling with word processors, punching the wrong numbers on ATM machines, or trying to program VCRs. However, the more directly computers tap the brain’s receptors, the more they will act as mechanisms for extending it. The intent therefore is not to replace the human brain as in artificial intelligence research, but to compliment it with a successful merger between its ability to recognize patterns and make decisions, and the computer’s ability to store, recall, and rapidly calculate complex data.

A 3D synthetic sensorial approach like Virtual Reality to computer environments like the Internet can help facilitate this merger. Even today companies are developing technologies which take full advantage of the benefits of interacting with computers in virtual space allowing for fuller comprehension of complex data by displaying them in ways the brain can best relate to – three dimensionally.

Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has devised numerous strategies for approaching the question of spatial arrangement of databases: “We’ve looked at various classical information structures in information space,” says Per-Kristian Halvorsen, one of PARC’s lab managers. “We’ve left the two-dimensional arena behind; we’re distinctly using three dimensions, but there we’ve looked at trees, various kinds of graphs, hierarchical information timeline presentations, and we have also experimentally merged it with images of buildings.”

Time and again we see computer terminology demonstrate a tendency toward spatiality with words such as “rooms,” “firewalls,” “windows,” “desktop,” “office,” and, of course, “cyberspace.” The analogy is one of immersion and of place. Now with Virtual Reality we have the ability to execute this analogy in a new cyber space of data organization that takes into account the human faculties for navigation and orientation.

However, like real space, cyberspace will require painstaking consideration in its design layout. In the same way that cities offer enough variety and detail for us to distinguish one space from another, and the formal structure of architecture makes space navigable, architects can use their discipline to prevent the users of information from getting lost in cyberspace. For instance, cities form distinct points on the surface of the earth. We use these distinct points to navigate between large distances via given transportation routes. As we move in toward a particular city, we are guided by the unique features of that city’s presence as a place (i.e. through streets, plazas, parks, etc.). If we continue further, the scale of spaces and points become smaller and more distinct until the whole system works its way down to the exact desired destination (i.e. in a room in a building). Here, architecture serves to convey complex information in a logical and organized manner so that we may navigate our way to a certain point. In this sense, buildings and cities provide the world’s most detailed navigation systems, and, as such, are widely perceived in terms of their navigational values. To put it simply, the job of architects in cyberspace will be to give complex data visual, readily knowable representations while still providing a pleasant and memorable experience.

We must also keep in mind that cyberspace need not be something that only mimics our physical world but also interprets it. For example, many of our abstract social systems such as economics and even difficult academic concepts as in mathematics and science can receive virtual manifestations. This can be done quite effectively since we now have the technology to inhabit and inspect in virtual space those concepts that were once best visualized using words. Consequently, the mind was the only place we could form a rough and often vague manifestation of a concept. However, with the ability to create virtual spaces in which the architecture of our minds can be seen and inhabited, we allow for a fuller understanding of abstract ideas and a true extension of human cognitive abilities.

III. Project Overview

Today we see evidence of the Internet already evolving toward this three-dimensional cyberspace. VRML, which stands for Virtual Reality Modeling Language, and Java, a programming language capable of creating applications which run in internet browsers, have already allowed for the viewing of three-dimensional graphics, dynamic web pages, and virtual spaces on the internet. From the existence and use of technologies such as these, and many more in queue, one could cogently argue that cyberspace is indeed already under construction.

If the argument, then, is that the Internet will gradually evolve into this virtual cyberspace, another argument would have to follow that institutions and businesses, and some people, will want a presence there. For businesses, that will mean a "headquarters" of sorts. These headquarters will handle commerce and trade, business meetings, customer services and whatnot in facilities appropriately designed for each company's specific needs. These "structures" will be much like the "walls of neon and shadow" described in the introductory scenario of this paper in which they will be "data-driven structures". In other words, the structures form themselves in response to data that comprise the company. For instance, a company like Barnes and Knoble.com might use data such as books sold, best buy days, best sellers, available stocks, hiring rates, etc.

The site I've chosen for this project, the Nasdaq Stock Market, is much more straightforward in this regard. I did this so that it would be more readily evident why architecture in cyberspace needs to be driven and even "designed", in a way, by the data systems which it represents. In short it is because cyberspace has been conceived as a dynamic space which handles the ever-increasing volumes of information consumption wrought by an information society. Much of what we consume today is information, cyberspace is an information space, thus the architecture of cyberspace should be "information architecture" -- dynamic, fluid, always evolving.

I have therefore begun this project as a first attempt at the actual construction of such a space. As stated above, I have taken the Nasdaq website and RE-presented it as it would appear in a virtual space using the described paradigms as an outline. When users first enter this Nasdaq webspace, they find themselves in the "lobby" area as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2:  “Entry Lobby” of Nasdaq web space — Figure 2: “Entry Lobby” of Nasdaq web space

Here we see a lot of bluish architecture and what appear to be three video screens that flash different images at regular intervals. These are actually “portals” which take travelers to other parts of the webspace. At the bottom of the screen there is something resembling a control panel like the helm of the star ship Enterprise. This is in fact just that. It is the control deck for the VRML browser, which allows one to navigate within the space. The space shown in figure 1 is analogous to the homepage of the site. From here users would ideally find links to other parts of the webspace. However, due to time constraints, I have provided one link for now. This link is the furthest to the left of the three "portals" and is highlighted by the arrow as seen in figure 1. This portal takes the user to the main space for this project -- the "Nasdaq 100 Space." This "Nasdaq 100 Space" corresponds to the page on the Nasdaq website where the 100 companies comprising NASDAQ’s 100 index are listed as shown in Figure 3.

On this page you see 100 companies listed with both their actual company name and their corresponding Nasdaq symbol. Next to that you see the company's market index value at the closing of the day. If you click on the company's name, you go to their homepage. If you click on the company's Nasdaq symbol, you go to the company's stock quotes page. In the company's stock quotes page you can look at current news on the company, charting, fundamentals, SEC quotes, and so forth.

After going through the portal link in the “Lobby” space, the user enters the "100 Index Space." This space corresponds to the Nasdaq “100 index page” in figure 3. Upon entry, the user first sees a large blue spider web-like object as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4: Entry scene and Java Security window.

This object is a distorted sphere with 100 points on it for the 100 Nasdaq companies. This "sphere" is actually the 3-dimensional representation of the list of companies as seen on the Nasdaq 100 index page. Each company is represented by one of the points on the sphere. The further a point is from the center of the sphere, the greater its market index value (note the large spikes in the image denoting large companies such as Microsoft).

As the space is loading, a security window prompts the user also as seen in Figure 4. Here Netscape will ask you to "Grant" or "Deny" the space permission to access information from the Nasdaq website. The user clicks "Grant” and the sphere changes suddenly. This is because a program, which is a live data feed written in JAVA, looks up the current day's market index values from the Nasdaq website in real time. It then plugs them into the sphere changing its points to today's market index values. Bringing up Netscape's JAVA Console under Communicator/Java Console will show the fetched market index values and the newly computed coordinate lists for the wire sphere as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Real time Nasdaq data feed readings.

Flying to the next viewpoint by clicking on the "next view" button on the VRML control deck, the user sees two objects which say "click for current index" and "click for previous index" as shown in figure 6.

Figure 6:  “current” and “previous” market index value button objects and control deck menu. — Figure 6: “current” and “previous” market index value button objects and control deck menu.

If you click on these objects you can change the sphere to look at the current day’s index values or the previous day's index values.

From here, the user may go to a point on the sphere where a company resides. A list of viewpoints may also be summoned for quick access to preset positions in the space. Using these viewpoints, the user may go directly to a desired company without wasting any time. Clicking the RIGHT mouse button will bring up the menu containing the viewpoints also as seen in figure 6. In addition, the menu has everything needed for controlling the browser such as movement, graphics and other options.

At a point on the sphere where a company resides the user sees the company’s logo displayed together with it's market index value as seen in figure 7.

Figure 7: Adobe Corporation Logo with Market Index Value.

If you get closer to a company logo, a strange object that represents the company appears, and you may enter it as shown in figure 8 on the following page.

Figure 8: Adobe Corporation Company “Node”.

This object or “node” is the company's stock quotes space which corresponds to the company's stock quotes page as accessed from the Nasdaq 100 index page (refer to figure 3). The intent for the stock quotes space is the same as the stock quotes page on NASDAQ’s website: to allow an investor to view everything about the company from within the space. Pulling up various graph-objects, readouts, and viewing real-time news footage, the investor can contact their broker at any time as they see what's happening from within the space. The interior of this particular node, the Adobe Node, is shown in figure 9 on the following page.

Figure 9: Interior of Adobe Corporation Node

As the project demonstrates, the technology currently exists to achieve a consensual cyberspace under many of the paradigms set forth in this paper. The above project exists not only as a commentary on today’s industry trends, but also as a real, working program available on the internet at http://dejene.aud.ucla.edu -- at least for the time being. Consequently, anyone can access and use the space at anytime from anywhere in the world. Thus the space aspires more closely to the true intention expressed by Nasdaq for their website which is that of a global virtual trading floor.

IV. How It Works

The project uses two primary computer languages that are made to talk to one another. The first language is VRML which stands for Virtual Reality Modeling Language. VRML is a standard language for describing interactive 3-D objects and worlds delivered across the Internet. The second is Java. Unlike Java, however, VRML is not a base programming language. Where Java is used to write programs from scratch, VRML is a macroscopic language for creating 3d objects and behaviors in space. In this project, VRML is used to create the scene while Java is used externally to “talk” to the scene.

By allowing languages such as Java and VRML to talk to one another, a programmer is able to make use of the special features of each so as to avoid inventing everything on their own. Therefore it was not necessary for this project to create an application which defined everything about a three-dimensional space from scratch since VRML takes care of these definitions implicitly. Likewise, Java also carries many built-in features necessary for the project such as provisions for accessing and scanning remote websites. This leaves the programmer free to concentrate on their main intentions rather than having to reinvent the wheel all the time. In this case the intention was to investigate ways to use remote data to influence the behaviors of a 3d space. Fortunately, VRML and Java include many ready-made tools for this.

The way Java “talks” to VRML is through a set of predefined commands that come with VRML called the EAI or External Authoring Interface. The Java programmer may use these commands in their code to access certain attributes within VRML. Some examples would be movement, lighting, color, visibility, etc. Virtually every VRML function is accessible either directly or indirectly through the EAI. In this way, one is able to cause things to happen within the VRML space which are not directly available within the VRML language specifications.

The following section goes over these technical issues in greater detail.

V. Specifications of the EAI

(by Chris Marin, 1996 Silicon Graphics Inc.

This section describes an overview of the methods and technical issues for this project. Every attempt has been made to present a fairly explicit picture of what was involved while trying to avoid a step by step tutorial. The reader will need to be somewhat familiar with both Java and VRML to fully grasp this section.

VI. Composition

A VRML file describes a scene in an object-oriented manner. The fundamental building block of these objects are Nodes. The main Nodes are essentially a subset of Silicon Graphic's Open Inventor format, these Nodes can be divided into the following categories:

Shape Nodes: represent 3D geometry objects such as points, lines, polygons and basic primitives like cubes, spheres cones, or cylinders. They are the only visible Nodes.
Property Nodes: affect the appearance and the characteristics of other Nodes.
Transform Nodes: perform coordinate transformations including rotation translation, and scale.
Appearance Nodes: perform object's appearance including color, material and texture maps.
Metrics Nodes: contain geometric information including coordinates, normals, textures, etc.
Group Nodes are used to collect Nodes to implement a hierarchical structure. Some of them can isolate the effects of their children from the rest of the scene.
Light Nodes are used to illuminate the scene
Camera Nodes are used to define different points of view and parameters.

Other Nodes including the Inline Node and the Anchor Node are used for appending a VRML world with another world and linking to another file respectively. The VRML Specification allows new Nodes to be created; these must hold a description to all their fields.

VRML and Java

Individually, VRML and Java have been developed to the extent of being relatively robust. However the marriage between the two is still in progress and there are currently several ways that VRML and Java can interact together and more in the works. Currently, the two most predominant ways of writing Java code for the purpose of manipulating VRML nodes is through the VRML Script Authoring Interface and the VRML EAI (External Authoring Interface). The Script Authoring Interface relies on the VRML Script Node which contains a "URL" field that may contain either a pointer to a script file or a full script file or a class file. The Script node is part of the VRML specification and it is well documented and supported. Although this method is appropriate for most applications it relies on coding the VRML file itself to coordinate and route the events to the Java code. The EAI is a proposal for an annex to the VRML specification. To this date it has not been officially ratified. Although the EAI is patterned after the Script Authoring Interface, it has the benefit of controlling all the routing of events within the Java code, leaving the VRML file smaller and simpler. The EAI offers more functionality and it lends itself to being a more powerful and flexible solution because of the apparent direct connection between the Java code and the VRML nodes. The EAI defines a set of functions on the VRML browser that the external environment can perform to affect a VRML world.

Figure 10: Flow Diagram of EAI connectivity

The VRML browser can interface to several standard points of connectivity. Interfaces shown in blue are used by authors of VRML worlds or of interfaces to these worlds such as the Java applet on the HTML page. Interfaces shown in red are intended for use by a programmer extending the functionality of the VRML browser.

Nodes in a VRML file can be named using the DEF construct. Any node with the DEF construct can be accessed by the applet and is referred as an accessible Node. Once a pointer is obtained the eventIns and eventOuts of that node can be accessed. The Java applet communicates with the VRML world by first obtaining an instance of the Browser class. This class is the Java encapsulation of the VRML world. It contains the entire Browser Script Interface as well as the getNode() method, which returns a Node when given a DEF string in the VRML file. The getEventIn() method of the Node class returns an EventIn when passed a string with the desired eventIn name. The getEventOut() method of the Node class returns an EventOut when passed a string with the desired evenOut name. ExposedFields can also be accessed, either by giving a string for the exposedField itself or by giving the name of the corresponding evenIn or eventOut.

Setting up the Environment

Although in theory the VRML EAI is not tied to any software in particular, the fact remains that presently there is a very narrow set of software packages that can be used for developing and viewing EAI based projects. The EAI Java classes are tailored to work with Cosmo Player 2.0. However, a more recent browser, Blaxxun Contact works as well. At the time of this paper, the browser can still be downloaded from the Blaxxun company homesite at www.blaxxun.com. The EAI related work performed for this project was done on an IBM compatible computer using Windows NT 4.0, Netscape Communicator 4.04 or greater, Blaxxun Contact 4.0, and Symantec Cafe 1.80 using Java JDK 1.1. This setup seems to yield the most predictable results although, because of the fact that the EAI is still in progress, there are many bugs and no guarantees are given by it's author. The Java compiler is, of course, not as critical and most likely other compilers could be used if desired.

Several class libraries comprise the EAI. These libraries come with the Cosmo Player software and are contained in a file called "npcosmo.zip", located in the CosmoSoftware\ CosmoPlayer folder. Netscape's classes are contained in file called "java40.jar" in the Netscape\Communicator\Program\Java \Classes folder. These classes, along with the standard JDK and Cafe classes should be available to the compiler and need to be added to the computer's classpath (set in Control Panel\System Environment) or added to the class directories of the compiler itself. The npcomso.zip and java40.jar files are archive files which contain many class files and they should be left compressed for the compiler to work properly.

The Java applet or embedded code can read defined Nodes in the VRML file and then can send and receive events that affect the VRML world. For this to work, both the Java class file (filename.class) and the VRML file (filename.wrl) need to be embedded in the HTML file. The syntax is standard HTML:

<HTML>

</applet>

</HTML>

Accessing VRML with Java

In order for the Java class to have access to the VRML world, a pointer is needed to the Browser where the VRML file is embedded. Currently this is done with the Browser method although the WWW Consortium is still in the process of finalizing both embedded objects and applets on an HTML page so it could possibly change. Once a pointer is obtained the getNode() method can be used to retrieve defined Nodes and in turn the Node methods are accessible.

Example to change the color of a cube in a VRML world:

· Code in VRML file that defines material as "cube_material":

Transform {
children [
Shape {
 appearance Appearance {
 material DEF cube_material Material {
diffuseColor 1 0 0
}
 }
 geometry Box { }
 }
 ]
}

· The Java code:


import VRML.external.*;
import VRML.external.field.*;
import VRML.external.exception.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.*;

public class javaexample extends Applet {
Browser browser = null;
Node material = null;

EventInSFColor diffuseColor = null;


public void init(){
buttons and other code here
}


Public void start() {
browser = Browser.getBrowser(this);
material = browser.getNode("cube_material");
diffuseColor = (EventInSFColor)material.getEventIn("set_diffuseColor"); 
}

Some method such as boolean action(){

float[] val = new float[3];
val[] = 1f;
val[] = 0f;
val[] = 0f;
diffuseColor.setValue(val);
 }
}

The exposedFields of the material node are accessed with the method get-EventIn using the string names for the events. All eventIns and exposedFields of the VRML nodes can be accessed using the prefix "set_..." An eventOut is caught using the suffix "..._changed". The setValue method changes the value of the accessed Node.

3. project setup

With this project, the individual components and their functions are relatively straightforward. Below is a simple flow diagram of connectivity between the main VRML scene, the Java applet, and the Nadaq 100 index page.

PerfectSphere.wrl

(main VRML file seen by the user)

Nasdaq 100 Index Page

HTML Browser

VRML Browser

4 class files:

indexCall.class

indexLookup.class

readSphere.class

readOldCoordlist.class

Figure 11: Flow Diagram of Project Connectivity

As shown in the diagram, the main component that does all calling and routing of data is the Java applet. In this way it can be seen as the “wizard behind the curtain” sort of speak since it does its work out of view of the user of the space. This is done quite intentionally since the purpose is to provide a seemingly continuous cyberspatial experience while keeping the generating machinery in the machine room (unless, of course, we want the users to see the machinery the way, say, fermenting tanks would be exposed aesthetically to visitors in a brewery).

When the space is first loaded, the applet is automatically initialized. It then looks up the 100 index page at the Nasdaq website through the HTML browser and scans the page for the company symbols and market index values. The applet retrieves the information and stores it. Next, the applet sends out a call to the VRML browser retrieving the old coordinate values for the sphere and stores this information. Lastly, the applet retrieves the coordinate values from a file containing a perfect sphere which is the “PerfectSphere.wrl” file seen in the diagram. When all this is finished, the applet can then perform it’s computations on the data and plug the new coordinate values back into the VRML space changing the sphere to the current day’s market index values.

Thus we see two major information loops in the diagram between the applet and the Nasdaq website, and the applet and the 100Sphere.wrl file. In addition, other data files may be created as needed and read by the applet as in the case of the Sphere.wrl file. Here we see the power of Java in routing events between a remote website, a text file residing on the server computer, and a VRML space.

To get a better idea of the handling of events within the Java applet itself, consider the diagram on the following page:

Figure 12: Flow Diagram of Connectivity within Java Applet

As we see, IndexCall.class is the main operand. From here, the three data inlets – indexLookup.class, readSphere.class, and readOldCoordlist.class – are called to send their retrieved values. IndexCall.class then performs three functions:

1. Multiplication of sphere coordinates by the index values.

2. Access to the VRML scene’s eventIns, eventOuts, and values.

3. Installation of the new values into the VRML scene.

V. Conclusion

The ability to produce dynamic virtual headquarters for companies on the web is currently being perpetuated at a feverish pace. All sorts of technologies are being put in place to make the use and construction of spaces such as this one practical every-day installations. Technologies such as html-generating page layout programs as with this very software I am using to write this paper – Microsoft Word – as well as others – Net Objects Fusion, Front Page, Macromedia’s Flash – all attest to a rapidly emerging community in which anyone can take part building.

The newest development – JDK 1.2, the new Java Development Kit, has also arrived. Among many significant new features such as processing speeds close to that of C++ code, JDK 1.2 also incorporates a whole new arsenal of tools for Java development called the “Swing” classes. These are a revolutionary set of reusable java code components that allows programmers to build portable graphical user interfaces that are completely independent of the host operating system. This ensures a consistent and graphically rich platform-independent user experience, regardless of the whether the app is running on a Mac, Solaris server, Microsoft Windows PC, network computer, or some other Java technology-enabled host.

It is developments such as JDK 1.2 as well as countless others that will ensure continued growth in web technology development. And although some technologies flourish while others founder, the overall growth rate remains exponential. In fact, the only limitations now are bandwidth and computer speed which themselves are increasing at such rapid paces that even this point will soon be moot. Therefore, we may look forward to a radically changing and increasingly immersive internet in the near future.

VI. References

1. Michael Benedikt (ed), 1991 Cyberspace: First Steps

2. William Gibson, 1984 Neuromancer

3. Mark Slouka, 1995 War of the Worlds: The High Tech Assault on Reality

4. Timothy Ostler, May 1994 Architecture in Cyberspace, The Architects Journal

5. Peter Ludlow (ed.), 1996 High Noon on the Electronic Frontier

7. Peter Anders, Oct, 1994 The Architecture of Cyberspace Progressive Architecture.

8. William J. Mitchell, 1993 Virtual Architecture Architecture

9. Robert Venturi, 1996 Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic Architecture

10. Neil Stephenson, 1998 Snow Crash

11. William J. Mitchell. 1997 City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn

12. Muse Technologies Web Site: www.musetech.com

13. The Web3-D Consortium: www.web3d.org

14. Ctheory: www.ctheory.com

15. Java Technology Homepage: http://java.sun.com/

16. Ray Kurzweil, 1999 The Age of Spiritual Machines

17. Chris Marrin, Silicon Graphics, Inc., 1997. Proposal for a Vrml 2.0 Informative Annex, External Authoring Interface Reference

18. Netscape Developer Web Site: http://developer.netscape.com

19. Virtual Reality Modeling Language Specification, Version 2.0, ISO/IEC CD 14772

20.Kris Jamsa, 1996-99 Java Now Java Programming Reference

21. Donald Hearn and M. Pauline Baker, 1997 Computer Graphics

22. H. M. Deitel and P. J. Deitel, 1998 Java: How to Program Java Programming Reference

23. Andrea L. Ames, David R. Nadeau, and John L. Moreland, 1997 VRML Sourcebook VRML Programming Reference

24. John R. Vacca, 1996 VRML: Bringing Virtual Reality to the Internet

Cyberspace vs. Real Space: Architectural Hybridization in the Information Age

Cyberspace . . . The realm of pure information, filling like a lake, siphoning the jangle of messages, transfiguring the physical landscapes . . . from all the inefficiencies, polutions (chemical and informational), and corruption attendant to the process of moving information attached to things -- from paper to brains -- across, over, and under the vast bumpy surface of the earth rather than letting it fly free in the soft hail of electrons that is cyberspace.

-Michael Benedikt, Cyberspace: First Steps

Cyberspace . . . organizations are seen as the organisms they are . . . money flowing in capillaries; obligations, contracts, accumulating (and the shadow of the IRS passes over). On the surface, small meetings are held in rooms, but they proceed in virtual rooms, larger, face to electronic face. On the surface, the building knows where you are and who.

-Michael Benedikt, Cyberspace: First Steps

Cyberspace . . . a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding....

-William Gibson, Neuromancer

“Cyberspace” is a word from the pen of science fiction writer William Gibson (circa 1984) in his novels and short stories such as Neuromancer and Burning Chrome. 1 It is a word that beckons architects and planners from the furthest corners of the globe to the threshold of a new frontier in design and planning -- dangling at the cutting edge of traditional notions in space and time in a place that is nowhere and everywhere. It is a word that brings with it tremendous new considerations for a world centered around information technology and the possible social impacts it will have. Most importantly, it is a word calling for the rethinking of architecture’s role in a global information age.

t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s:

I. introduction to cyberspace
    1. history of cyberspace
    2. implications for a post-organic anthropology: the Gibsonian cultural model of
         cyberspace

II. cyberspace and architecture in a global information age

III.   cyberspace vs. real space: theories for design
    1. design in real space: spatial mutants
    2. new arenas for design: architects in cyberspace

IV.    project description
    1. design objectives
    2. site description

Appendix A: site maps and photos

Appendix B: user hierarchical diagrams

Appendix C: spatial and functional requirements

Appendix D: notes and bibliography

I. Introduction

Try it,” Case said [holding out the electrodes of the cyberdeck]. The Zionite Aerol took the bank, put it on, and Case adjusted the trodes. He closed his eyes, Case hit the power stud. Aerol shuddered. Case jacked him back out. “What did you see, man?” “Babylon,” Aerol said, sadly, handing him the trodes and kicking off down the corridor. -William Gibson, Neuromancer

Gibson was the first to conceive of a place accessed through, sustained by, and generated from the collective data of “every computer in the human system.” Existing as a sort of “by-product” of the complexity of life on earth and the relentless interaction between its thinking beings, it emerges amid a new dimension. Unfolding in an endless digital landscape, it challenges traditional notions of space and time in a realm where data intrinsic to “invisible” social systems in this world are given visible, immersive representations. Through his various cyberpunk short stories and novels, he would eventually dub this place cyberspace.

the history of cyberspace

Initially, the word “cyberspace” may lead us to think only in terms of the present and future. However, cyberspace existed since the dawn of consciousness, albeit, not as we might have perceived in lieu of the modern technologies which brought it to our attention. Floating between the worlds of pure myth and pure fact, it began as the thinking mind’s ability to dream, wonder, imply, investigate, and conceive; an untimely “space” or realm of information created by the mental activity of conscious beings, but, at the same time, invisible and inaccessible to them.

Illustrating this concept, Sir Karl Popper, a renowned sociologist and theoretician, described three worlds which coexist parallel to one another, but not separately – connected by means of their own interaction:

World 1:
This is simply the physical world as we know it. It consists of everything around us which obey the physical laws of the universe and which operate under them; the world in which we, as individuals, interact with each other.

World 2:
The subjective world of consciousness in individual minds comprises the substance of world 2. It is the world in which thought and the imagination are fostered and dreams are wrought. As individuals, it is the only place we truly inhabit alone.

World 3:
This is the world of objective, public, and abstract social structures -- products of the minds of living creatures interacting with each other and with physical world 1.

Of particular interest is world three because, according to Popper, it has always existed as a sort of battery of collective conscience formed by the interaction of living, thinking beings in world 1. The by-products of these interactions manifest themselves in world three as “objective, public, and abstract social structures” such as social class, economics, law, etc... Due to their abstract quality, however, these structures could only be described using abstract symbols -- namely words -- in order to understand, or concretize, them. However, cyberspace presents us with the possibility of perceptually inhabiting this world, visualizing it for the first time, and implementing its final and ultimate manifestation.

Taking this idea further architect and theorist, Michael Benedikt, suggested four main threads which he believed intertwined throughout history to act as the vehicles through which man expressed, in world one, the workings of world three:

Thread One:
This evolved from the general consensus of early social groups about things which were merely accepted as “the case,” such as their early observations of the environment, and, of course, myths.

Thread Two:
Thread two spins from the history of media technology -- the means by which absent and/or abstract entities -- events, experiences, and ideas -- become symbolically represented, “fixed” into an accepting material (i.e texts, drawings, magnetic strips), and thus conserved through time and space.

Thread Three:
This thread is spun from the history of architecture. Some might argue here that architecture should belong to world one, perhaps due to its seemingly tangible physicality. Although it is true that architecture starts with man’s exile from nature, and with his need to meet certain immediate stresses such as climate, population, and defense, it is only with architecture that nature is co-opted, transformed, and made habitable. It is this separation from nature by means of architecture as a type of manifestation of humanity’s consciousness which sets it apart as an art, art as a product of abstract thought, and, thus, abstract thought as a structure of world three.

Benedikt explained architecture’s role in humanity’s undying struggle to break free of its earthly bonds. At first this was expressed through the countless projects begun and built in pursuit of the architectural pinnacle, the architecture of eternity, the architecture of the Kingdom of Heaven. Nonetheless, however vertical, colorful, or sculptural the architecture became, it still remained massive, solid and utterly bound to this world. But with the arrival of modernist theory, economic pressure to do more with less, and the availability of new materials, architecture began to take a different turn. It became lighter, wispier, whole walls reduced to reflective skins. This exploration in architecture, in regards to materiality, has continued in present day contemporary movements to the point of exhaustion. A question to ponder now is whether or not cyberspace is the next logical step for architecture.

Thread Four:
This thread is drawn from the larger history of mathematics. Benedikt explains that the “entities” of mathematics -- graphs, charts, computer representations of invisible physical processes -- are not entities at all. Rather, they are products of world three that have evolved as a result of our deductive intelligence. Here, mathematicians and architects are brought together under the common desire to conceive arithmetical information spatially.

As we see cyberspace has always existed, merely in different forms. World three (which, indeed, we name so for our own means of visualizing abstract concepts through abstract words) has been sought by humanity for millennia, whether it be through artistic expression, or objective social structures. Now, with present virtual technologies and a cyberspace that is under construction, we are faced with the end of this journey. The end, however, will be a time when world three is no longer merely sought after, but inhabited.

implications for a post- organic anthropology: the Gibsonian cultural model of cyberspace

In an essay on the technoculture depicted in Gibson’s vision for the near future, author and theorist David Thomas explores the notion of a post-organic anthropology for our society. He does this by comparing the post-industrial transubstantiation of the body in cyberspace to related social and symbolic transformations of the body in traditional rites of passage rituals characteristic of tribal societies, and, on a broader scale, pre-Industrial Revolution societies.3 The author explains how drawing direct parallels between the two may give foretelling insight of the culture transcending us in the future.

Demonstrating this concept, Thomas quotes sociologist Victor Turner (circa 1977): “For every major social formation, there is a dominant mode of public liminality, the subjunctive space/time that is the counterstroke to its pragmatic indicative texture.”4 Here the notion of “liminality” refers to the state or mode of transition/transposition experienced by an initiand (or group of initiands) between different stages of social existence or identity such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death. It is conceived as a “realm” in which the initiand is suspended and completely severed from any relations with the world of daily social structure. In this sense, s/he is in a sort of “exile” from identity. Before one may begin this liminal phase, however, one must first undergo the proper separation rites which are meant to prepare the individual for the transformation. Conversely, normalization rites come after the liminal phase to reinstate the individual to society. Some common examples of these rituals would be baby showers, weddings, birthdays, mourning periods for deceased loved ones, funerals, divorce, etc. . . The collective rites de passage rituals, then, act as mediators to ensure the initiand is properly removed, transposed between, and reinstated after the desired transformation has taken place without any residues of the previous existence or identity.

Though this theory does carry a slight “people as helpless pawns of circumstance” intonation, it draws interesting parallels between tribal/pre-Industrial Revolution social rituals and Gibsonian cyberspace. That is, the act of “jacking” in and out of cyberspace as Gibson depicted in his novels, though radically truncated versions, bare qualities similar to traditional rites de passage rituals. By jacking into cyberspace, the “initiand” performs an act similar to separation rites. Conversely, jacking out, is a version of normalization rites. The hardware (i.e. “cyberdeck” and “trodes” ) serves as access and egress. Cyberspace , then, would be similar to a state of liminality where the subject has no connection with his/her former self -- the biological body. Though this may seem to share some aspects with death and extra-bodily experiences, the important difference to remember is that, in cyberspace, return is possible. In this sense, it is not a parallel universe, but an alternate mode of being, a discontinuity of time and space in a pan human state.

This raises interesting issues of humanity’s religious tendencies with regards toGibsonian cyberspace. If, indeed, many acts performed in cyberspace reflect these ritualistic gestures and if cyberspace can be taken as a consensual hallucination which creates a discontinuity in space and time, then the argument could be made that cyberspace, as a sort of large caliber tribal ritual, will catalyze humanity’s religious tendencies, awaking them after years of desacralization from science. Already, virtual communities are forming on the internet under common creeds and beliefs, with deemed leaders and social structures. The talk of the ascension of humanity to a higher realm dominates topics of conversation on bulletin boards and newsgroups across the world. But, where will it really all lead? Will the individual finally be that of a free spirit? Or will we simply grow more isolated from one another in front of our computers as we become ultimately “in touch” with the world literally at our fingertips?

These questions are best considered by first understanding the behavior of those already living their lives as vicariously as possible online. Thomas offers a distinction between two types of behavior associated with, what he now refers to this rising technoculture as, a post-organic anthropology -- liminal and liminoid behavior. Liminal behavior is characteristic of tribal societies governed by the collective social. It is oriented by the central social group, everything done for the sake of that social group, and , thus, enhances the group as a whole. Liminoid behavior, on the other hand, forms independent of the social group. The individual is more non-contractual and modernistic -- modernistic behavior meaning the exaltation of the indicative mood. The liminoid sees the social as problem not datum. Though there is a mixture of both in today’s virtual communities, it can be said that the liminoid is rapidly encroaching upon the liminal.

We must realize that Gibson’s interpretation for the future, however exciting or opportunistically suggestive it may seem, possesses an intrinsically dystopic element as well.3 Though Gibson’s model has the potential of becoming a culturally creative arena in , what would seem, a given post industrial social context, it’s potential is thwarted by the liminoidal qualities of its nature. Both desperate and dismal, it is a future in which the celebration of individual spiritualism and the ascension of humanity is traded for a heritage of corporate hegemony and urban decay. In this post tribal, post liminal future, information is the key commodity and the individual an expendable component; cyberspace being nothing more than a locale for corporate contestatory economic activity. Desperate soles then attempt to flee the resulting intolerable reality, but instead fall into various states of spritual and moral degeneration. Here, there are only the technologically adept or the informationally inept . . . no exceptions . . .only expenditures.

If one considers today’s increasingly dominant and exclusive socioeconomic structures coupled with recent developments in information technology, such as virtual reality, digital communications, and the world wide web, Gibson’s vision may indeed be closer to actualization than we think. In fact, many aspects of Gibson’s stories are simply futuristic extensions of today’s truths. For instance, the “console cowboys” of Gibson’s novels are the counterparts of today’s hackers. Under the belief that all access to information should be free and with the technical knowledge to act, hackers today fight for a new social order all together. As their popular war cry goes, “Always yield to the hands-on imperative.”5 This operates under the pretense that information is not something which can be owned. A good example would be where a company is carrying information on you, such as your credit account, and wouldn’t allow you access. Since the credit is information on you, your own personal files, do you not have a right to access it? Can viewing information on yourself possibly infringe on other's rights? This demonstrates a type of system today that simply would not function in, or at least be counterproductive to, the future. How do we put a restriction on “intellectual property rights” when we’re not even sure what property is in this case or what those rights really are? In the same sense, those who do not have privileged access to information through filiation or who simply cannot afford the sophisticated equipment to access that knowledge today, will most likely not be able to tomorrow. Economics are a constant-- present or future. That is not likely to change.

With this in mind, cyberspace should be a realm accessible to all, not only the privileged. Virtual and real must complement each other rather than operate separately. In this way, we may avoid Gibson’s dystopic vision and , instead, realize cyberspace for its potential of benefitting humanity rather than engineering its demise. As stated by Thomas, “. . . we must seek alternative creative and spatial logics, social and cultural configurations.”6 Otherwise, cyberspace may only serve to elevate levels of corporate beuracracy rather than holding considerable promise for a new post-organic anthropology.

II. Cyberspace and architecture in a global information age

The metropolis today is a classroom: the ads are its teachers. The traditional classroom is an obsolete detention home, a feudal dungeon. - Marshall McLuhan, Counterblast

When we ponder the question of architecture’s specific role in an information age, we should not only deal with buildings as singular entities, but rather we must consider the impact of a fully developed cyberspace on a broader scale, the scale of the urban fabric. In works such as Gibson’s novel, this manifested itself in the form of an urban dystopia. However, this vision was a direct result of corporate hegemony and an exclusive, inhumane cyberspace (see discussion in previous section). In consistency with this vision, therefore, architecture and urbanity are equally cold and brutal. However, there are interpretations of the future which do in fact observe architecture as a means of embracing technology through expression. In Lawrence G. Paul’s 1981 screenplay, Blade Runner (figures 1 and 2), we see an urban vision slightly different from that

figures 1 and 2: imagery from Blade Runner, 1981

of Gibson’s. Released before the idea of cyberspace, architecture here is centered around electronics technology as the key aesthetic motivation.

Though the urban context of Blade Runner does correspond with Gibson’s vision as a scene of overcrowding and decay , it also makes use of architecture as a form of iconography through electronics.10 In many respects, this makes sense for the architecture of the information age, and especially the architecture of cyberspace’s fruition even though this film was conceived without regard to such a concept. In his book, Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic Architecture, Robert Venturi argues for an architecture which finally embraces “...electronic technology, scenographic imagery, and flexible iconography that itself celebrates [the] pluralities of cultures and contexts over time,” and whose content, “ accommodates our information age rather than our aged theorists.” 8 However, this sort of architectural treatment was a vision by architects for decades.

For instance, cities gradually came to be seen less as simple collections of streets, buildings, and parks, and more as “immense nodes of communication: messy nexuses of messages, storage and transportation facilities, massive education machines of their own complexity, involving equally all media, including buildings.”9 Archigram, a group of six architects operating between 1961 and 1974, was one such group. Their dream was of a city that built itself unpredictably, cybernetically, and of buildings that did not resist television, telephones, cars and advertising -- arguably some of the earliest forms of cyberspace -- but instead accommodated and played with them. “Label City” and “Instant City” (figures 4 and 5) are two visionary projects by Archigram which illustrate these ideals:

figures 3 and 4: Archigram’s “Label City”, 1972 and “Instant City”, 1973 respectively

Their work was on the cutting edge, and, at first, not greeted with open arms. They tended to upset people who still thought architecture was somehow a sacred discipline that should not be played with and certainly not placed at the some “level” as comics, television, rock and roll, and various other forms of popular cultural phenomena. Their beliefs that architecture could be more than just implied concepts -- that it could literally tell you something -- was too advanced for the times. However, as cyberspace transcends us, the need for new forms of communicatory logics and a new architectural language have made many of these principles valid and necessary.

III. cyberspace vs. real space: theories for design

A call to reconsider the role of architecture, even beyond Archigram’s dream, is more crucial than ever before. With the rapid onslaught of new developments in communications and informations technology, multi media, and virtual reality all pushing towards a unified cyberspace, the time for acceptance of architecture as mediator has come. Cyberspace and real space, their systems having reciprocal influence on each other, will and must reflect one another in their respective designs. Architects and designers must merge, disseminate, and proliferate the two realms into a mutual state of counter-influence. As we will see, this will require careful design considerations on both fronts.

Design in real space: spatial mutants

Cyberspace will reconfigure the uses of physical spaces and real time slots. It will lead to the disintegration of many traditional building types and recombination of the remaining pieces with computational devices, telecommunications networks, and software to generate unprecedented mutants. -William J. Mitchell, “Virtual Architecture”

In real space, buildings must not stand idle -- ignorant of day-to-day information exchange by existing as none other than indifferent “people containers.” They must not simply house their programs behind inhibiting walls, in sterile offices and classrooms which provide no accommodation for innovative new technologies and new means of communication, thus hindering their evolution. Rather, buildings must funnel these currents of communication, intercept them at various levels and disseminate them among proper channels. They should act as “adaptive transmitters” to cyberspace by allowing for the uninterrupted exchange of information between both realms. The arrival of a new immersive, fully consensual cyberspace will see a culmination of this role.

Certain building types have already begun, in one way or another, to recombine their existing paradigms by accommodating technology in ways best suited to it. This trend is evident in building types centering around the exchange, distribution, consumption, and storage of information such as libraries, office buildings, post offices, and banks. In no place is this more apparent today, however, than in the changing workplace. Many enlightened corporations have begun reconfiguring their office environments in order to improve productivity and promote a sense of community among employees through special new technologically-oriented programs.

The idea of community in the workplace began as early as 1972 with the work of Dutch Architect Herman Hertzberger and his Centraal Beheer insurance company head quarters in Apeldorn, Holland (figures 5 - 7). While corporate America was busy marking the landscape with hermetically sealed office towers and rambling suburban complexes, Hertzberger set the precedent for a new type of office layout. Conceived as a “big house” for 1,000 people, the overall initiative was to create an environment that would foster creativity in a new office community.

figure 5: ground floor plan figure 6: cut-away axo figure7: view of atrium

Hertzberger’s design has had rippling effects in office planning. The need to accommodate technology while still promoting this sense of community has led the field back to the idea explored at Central Beheer. These changes are taking place mostly with companies who recognize the possible advantages of the information age, if prepared for correctly, as well as its possible ill effects if we use technology in a fashion which increases dispersion of skills and isolation of workers.

For instance, Chiat/Day, the ad agency that commissioned Frank Gehry to design its Santa Monica, California headquarters, recently brought in Lubowicki/Lanier to gut the regimented interiors and replace them with a, “. . .virtual agency, where creativity is best fostered by cross-fertilization. With no dedicated offices, the building, wired for all current and potential technologies, will house myriad team-orientedand common spaces . . .”11 (figures 8 and 9). This plan provides new types of work spaces such as “cockpit offices” and “work/eat areas” in a transformed office format resembling an “interior campus” of sorts. This new format, actually a result of the intensive research of BOSTI (the Buffalo Organization for Social

figure 8: Chiat/Day “before” plan figure 9: plan after renovations

and Technological Innovation), follows specific requisites of new construction. In the following excerpt from the March, 1994 issue of Progressive Architecture , Michael Brill discusses the BOSTI principles:

New construction of offices . . . must accommodate the much wider variety of space types needed by vertically integrated and team-based organizations. They need offices, of course, but intermixed with spaces for training: laboratories; workshops; showrooms; media studios; research and development; production . . . and to accommodate both global business hours and extended “normal” hours. People must have access to late-night food and a range of off-hours amenity spaces and services . . . either in-building or nearby and safe where land is available. Both the spatial mix and need for amenities can be provided in a campus plan. . .
Some natural consequences of the changes we are experiencing are the loss of opportunities for informal learning (the way most things are learned in organizations), the loss of work-related social networks, [and] some psychic distancing from the organization. These happen because of shorter duration terms and decreased cycle times, more work in the field and home (and less in the office), folks electronically networked rather than spatially co-located. It is becoming very important to purposively design workplaces that maximize and support face-to-face contact of all kinds.

BOSTI principles are perhaps best exemplified by XEROX corporation’s AFI (Alternate Facilities Initiative) program.12 Instated under these same imperatives, XEROX has provided detailed plans for the design and renovation of all their corporate facilities. Figures 10 - 12 show the ideal floor plan layout for AFI as well as some 3D representations of these new unique work spaces.

figure 10: typical AFI floor plan

figures 11and 12: in-use demo, high performance learning center

The whole design is oriented under the idea of a campus plan. Open spaces act as commons areas which are the locales for creative group work. These are equipped with “tech tables” which provide digital outlets for laptops and other electronics. The layout of work spaces, such as cockpit offices and telebooths, are then strategically arranged around the open commons areas. Also, these work spaces are perfectly designed for given tasks. The employees simply choose which space is the most appropriate, and then use the space as long as necessary. This attention to detail is taken as far as placement of strategic niches in corridors (i.e. at corners of intersections, across from conference rooms) in hopes that even the productivity of chance meetings will be increased. In order to accomplish this goal, these niches are equipped with the necessary amenities such as writing surfaces, telephones, and digital outlets.

Another interesting idea of the AFI program is that of in-use demonstrations. By providing spaces such as the “in-use demo” room (refer to figure 11) XEROX brings the public directly into the heart of its operation. In programs such as AFI, this is a crucial complement. By allowing for public hands-on use and the communalization of people under the sign of technology, such programmatic configurations serve to bring the realms of technology and society (cyberspace and the real world) closer to a state of mutual coexistence.

New arenas for design: architects in cyberspace:

In the same way that cities offer enough variety and detail for us to distinguish one space from another, and the formal structure of architecture makes space navigable, our disciplines can prevent the users of information from getting lost in cyberspace, which is a big place with few maps
-Peter Anders, “The Architecture of Cyberspace”

Like real space, cyberspace will require painstaking consideration in its design layout. Architects and planners, through their respective disciplines, will engage this task in an environment that is the embodiment of both function and form; a place the earliest modernists could only dream of. In cyberspace, however, we will not only realize the dream of modernism, but inhabit it in a world where data forms space rather than occupying it. Here, we will indulge and proliferate the imagination as we transcend the restraints of the ordinary world to bask in the non-space of the mind itself. Direction, in the physical sense, has no jurisdiction, action no reaction, if the desire so be. For this is a place where any traditional laws of the universe can be compromised; a place where a fifth dimension causes objects to fold and double over on themselves pulsating in rythmic sync with the fluctuating algorithms that give them life. Here, “. . . not only is real time an active concern of the architect, but the logistics of sustainable, transmissable illusion become as real as the most physical material constraints.”13 In cyberspace, data is the facility and imagination the vehicle by which we explore it.

The question may come to mind of what role architects will play in cyberspace. Why is there a need for this discipline at all? To answer this, one might consider a function buildings and cities serve in physical space. For instance, cities form distinct points on the surface of the earth. We use these distinct points to navigate between large distances via given transportation routes. As we move in toward a particular city , we are guided by the unique features of that city’s presence as a place (i.e. through streets, plazas, parks, etc.). If we continue further, the scale of spaces and points become smaller and more distinct until the whole system works its way down to the exact desired destination (i.e in a room in a building ). Here, architecture serves to convey complex information in a logical and organized manner so that we may navigate our way to a certain point. In this sense, buildings and cities provide the world’s most detailed navigation systems, and, as such, are widely perceived in terms of their navigational values. To put it simply, the job of architects in cyberspace will be to give complex data visual, readily knowable representations while still providing a pleasant and memorable experience.

In cyberspace, we will need similar mechanisms of orientation with which to navigate. Since there are no natural features, everything starting as a barren datascape awaiting form, we must rely on the disciplines of spatial organization in order to create a system of navigation similar to that which we experience through architecture in physical space, albeit under radically different paradigms. Researchers and developers who are already negotiating the parameters of cyberspace, have acknowledged the importance of architectural design in this realm. “We’ve looked at various classical information structures in information space,” says Per-Kristian Halvorsen, XEROX’s Palo Alto Research Center lab manager. “We’ve left the two-dimensional arena behind; we’re distinctly using three dimensions, but there we’ve looked at trees, various kinds of graphs, hierarchical information timeline presentations, and we have also experimentally merged it with images of buildings. It is a space organization problem. Whether it is an architectural problem, I don’t know, [but] that’s probably a useful paradigm to think of it in.”14

While conceding that cyberspace exists as yet only in a relatively crude form, Michael Benedikt believes that, with developments in VR and networking technology, “one might cogently argue that cyberspace is now under construction.”15 He says it is important at this early stage in cyberspace’s existence to agree on a set of principles that might be regarded as the “laws of “nature in this virtual world. Thus, he derives, what he calls, the Seven Principles of Cyberspace:

Principle of exclusion - you cannot have two things in the same place at the same time.
Principle of maximal exclusion - given any n-dimension state of a phenomenon to be represented, choose for space and time dimensions the set of dimensions that will minimize the number of violations of the principle of exclusion.
Principle of indifference - the felt realness of the world depends on the degree of its indifference to the presence of a particular user and on its resistance to their desire.
Principle of scale - the amount of (phenomenal) space in cyberspace is a function of the amount of information in cyberspace.
Principle of transit - travel between two points in cyberspace should occur phenomenally through all intervening points and incur costs to the traveller proportional to some measure of the distance.
Principle of personal visibility - individual users in/of cyberspace should be visible in some form and to all other users in the vicinity. Individual users may choose whether or not, and to what extent, to see/display any of the other users.
Principle of commonality - virtual places should be “objective” for a defined community of users.

- List from “Cyberspace: First Steps”

Benedikt also goes on to explain the concept of giving three dimensional representations to complex data sets in cyberspace.

Although the design of cyberspace does conceivably allow for the complete departure from all laws of real space, certain fundamental rules must be honored: namely, those rules of real space that the body, through its various faculties, uses to navigate its environment. Once these criteria are established, we may then decide which rules to jettison for the sake of empowerment. Otherwise, an absolute departure from all laws of our world would lead to disorientation and, ultimately, vertigo.

In an article describing his program, Trans Terra Firma,16 Marcos Novak, another architect involved in this field, urges for a new architectural poetics which, not only rethink the role of architecture in cyberspace, but also transcend any preconceived notions of space and time in the Euclidean sense. He states that architecture since the end of classicism has been impotent in mending the rupture between its representations and how we actually know the world around us. This is because, as our modes of examining, experiencing, and understanding the physical world became more pluralistic (i.e. as we “extended” our senses with scientific oberservation -- electromagnetic field studies, relativity, quantum mechanics that led to today’s theories of hyperspace and stochastic universes), it created a condition that architecture, burdened by its materiality, could no longer follow. Here, Novak provides a few parameters for cyberspatial design:

The Dimension of Implicit Time:
Novak explains how the principles of “time-image” in cinematics relate to the architecture of cyberspace. Time-image is the technique of taking scenes out of place in a film and reconstituting them in manners which color the story with probable histories of possible futures. In cyberspace, architecture will need to take this concept into consideration, for there the concern of the architect will extend beyond just motion through space. It will include motion through time as well. This is because, in cyberspace, the environment itself may change or fluctuate its attributes relative to one’s time and position in space.

The Dimensions of Implicit Space:
This has to do with the idea of, what Novak calls, “archimusic.” Since time and space can no longer be separated in cyberspace, he explains, then so too must we join the two arts which embody these two ideals -- architecture and music. Until now, we never had any way of inhabiting the imagination of this concept. While our sciences observed micro- and macroscopic regions of curved, higher dimensional space-time, we always built within the minimal capacity of our immediate senses. Now, however, we have a way of observing these realms through architecture which fluctuates rythmically with the systems it represents. Figures 26 - 28 are three images from Novak’s first Trans Terra Firma event at the Banf Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada which illustrate such concepts:

figures 25-27, left to right: isosurface, twist- shell spherical coordinate form, rippled isochamber

Here, we see various images from Novak’s “Dancing With The Virtual Dervish”, a program in which multiple users at the Trans Terra Firma event were able to interact with each other and with the architecture of virtual environments. These are designed through the analogy of sound as the result of different wave frequencies. Here, like sound, shapes can be controlled by adding or subtracting perturbations to the wave curves represented by the shapes (i.e. a sine wave). This principle illustrates what Novak means by “archimusic”. The creation of form in this manner will allow us to design an architecture appropriate to the complexities of cyberspace, relativity notwithstanding. In this way we might finally enhance our perception of spatial relations, “without always falling back on the sacred Euclidean geometry of the past.”

Though the area of design in cyberspace is still an open field, Novak and architects like him are leading the way in establishing new architectural expressions which are sure to have dramatic impacts on the profession. Only by pushing beyond traditional notions of time and space will we begin to understand our role as designers in a realm whose core logic is spatiotemporal representation. Thus necessitated by this are new concepts in space and form -- architecture now being much more than that of a utilitarian regime. We must reach beyond the static forms of Euclidean geometry and implied concepts, for the time has come at last to bridge the gap between the known systems of the universe and architectural poetics.

IV. Project discription

design objectives:

This thesis will implicitly study the ramifications of a fully immersive, transcontinental cyberspace on a post industrial, post liminal architecture and society. It will do this in an institute through whose very agency, and others like it, cyberspace exists; a research and production facility for cyberspace software systems. As a joint collaboration between Penn University students, professors, and XYZ Telecommunications Company personnel, this institute’s program will house functions existing in real time and real space, but with virtual extensions of themselves in cyberspace. This, in turn, will generate a civic/commercial portion which is meant to provide the public with hands-on access to the informations technology being produced at the institute. Though there will be a small retail portion, the institute’s main purpose will still be to allow free access to its facilities. In this way, it is hoped that, through education, the barriers between cyberspace and real space might be diminished by making the ladder less of an exclusive realm accessible only to the socially or technologically privileged.

As a result of it’s duality of functions, the program is actually separated into two parts (or two sides of one whole, if you will): a physical facility in real space, and a virtual one in cyberspace. It will therefore perform the key role of bringing the two worlds to a focal point where they might merge on a public scale. In this sense, it will serve as the “adaptive transmitter” through which activity and interactivity from real space will be transmuted into cyberspace (and vice versa). The institute’s two components and their respective design concepts are as follows:

The physical facility as:

* “adaptive transmitter” to cyberspace

* production cell generating cyberspace

* arrival and departure “terminal” for cyberspace

* marker in real space for this location

The virtual facility as:

* “adaptive transmitter” to real space

* storage and processing facility for data from real space

* data base and arrival facility for travellers in cyberspace

* destination in cyberspace for these coordinates

The physical facility retrieves data from its virtual facility in cyberspace. It then studies the data and produces operations which are fed back into cyberspace. At the same time, it acts as a “funnel” through which data and activity from real space can be transmitted/transmuted into cyberspace. Conversely, the institute’s virtual facility will receive data from its physical counterpart, storing and manifesting it in visible form as an accessible, inhabitable data base. This cyber facility will also serve as a social space containing public zones for general meeting and gathering (i.e. chat rooms, information center on the institute’s work, international library for the city of Philadelphia) as well as private zones for the institute’s use (i.e. teleconferencing chambers, private data or “cyber-study” zones, seminar rooms). All the while, this cyber-facility will constantly import data from cyberspace, combining it with data recieved from its real space counterpart, processing, and transmitting/transmuting it back to real space. Thus, it is a fully reciprocal relationship between the two components.

As we will see, the institute will enjoy an almost mirrored, if not completely merged, existence of functions in real space and cyberspace. Each side of this existence willl have direct influence on one another’s operations as they feed back and forth between the two realms. Each will exist simultaneously as entities of separate, yet parallel facets. Each will represent the ideals of the institute from which they were formed.

Between the two lies an infinitely small threshold -- visible, yet viable; real, yet minascule. It must be considered thoroughly. The design of an interface that allows people to “cross” its boundary as smoothly as possible is of vital importance. In order for the mergence of the two realms to be successful, users must not be bogged down by the technology which acts as their portal. This would create a feeling of uneasiness and discomfort, and thus the felt realness of the experience is drastically reduced in potency as well as effectiveness. It must not try to be overly pretentious.

site description:

The site is located near the campus of Penn University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (please refer to map and photos in Appendix A). The exact orientation lies within the athletic field area of Penn which is between the old Philadelphia Convention Center and the Schuykill river, separated from it by Interstate 95. The reason for the selection of this site is one of symbollic as well as functional significance:

1. Chronological Layering of Transport Systems:
In this area of the city, the primary land use has been for transport. Here bridges, tunnels, subways, railroads, expressways, and power lines interweave in a dense layering of steel, cable, and concrete. What is interesting, however, is the visible manner in which this layering has occurred over the years. First the railraod, then the subway, then electricity, vehicles, and interstates, all of them leaving their marks in a complex dialogue of movement (the abondoned subway station on the site reinforces these observations). This is testimony to humanity’s continuing transubstantiation through time and space: signal, image, letter, sound, moving image, live sound, live image, sense and action, intersense, interaction, presence, interpresence, and now telepresence. It is fitting, then, that this long history of our awareness of elsewhere should now have added to it our willingness to interact with everything in simultaneous existence.
2. Disparate Connection to the Urban Context
The question is not one of urban consideration: the city as place, negative spaces, relation to urban fabric, building as artifact, but rather it is one of intersection: the body transposed through telepresence, levels of transport, the collection and dissemination of information.. . . this site serves to enhance and elaborate these concepts. The straight line of infinity and the intersection for locale now displace space as merely a collection of solids and voids. For now space no longer exists in planar relativity between points, but as an incongruous permeation of visible (cars, trains, pedestrians, airplanes) and invisible movement (microwaves, fibre optics, cellular signals). Thus, though the physical building must certainly be designed for the body, considerations of traditional relationships to space will diminish with its new intermissiary state; caught between two worlds.
3. Zone of “Destination Points” in Real Space
With Amtrak’s 30th Street Station to the north, the direct connection to the Philadelphia International airport via Interstate 95 to the south, and two subway stations (one new, one abondoned) located directly on the site, the stories of arrival, departure, and motion-in-progress make this a proper location for the transport facility of the newest kind. Namely, the destination coordinate for cyberspace. Likewise, this building will be serving a similar function for users in real space such as the general public. For them, the civic/commercial portion of the institute will be analogous to a port terminal.
4. Proximity to Client
The site’s proximity to Penn University central campus is necessary for the students who will be using the facility. It also serves to solidify the operation of the institute by keeping it in close contact with cutting-edge intellectual development. In retrospect, the institute will help solidify the operations of the university by benefitting the educational realm as well.

Appendix D: bibliography

notes:

1. Cf. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, 1981, p. 125.

2. Cf. “Cyberspace: First Steps,” 1991, Michael Benedikt (ed.), p. 15.

3. Cf. David Thomas, “Old Rituals for New Space,” in “Cyberspace: First Steps.”

4. Turner speaks of these relationships in “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology. Rice University Studies 60-4, 53-92.

5. In his essay “Property Rights, Privacy, etc.,” Mike Godwin discusses hacker raids on corporate systems in “High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace,’ Peter Ludlow (ed.).

6. Cf. David Thomas, “Old Rituals for New Space.”

7. Robert Venturi calls for a new architectural expression in “Iconography and Electronics Upon A Generic Architecture,” 1996: pp. 6-10.

8. Cf. Robert Venturi, “Iconography and Electronics,” 1996.

9. Cf. Michael Benedikt, “Cyberspace: First Steps”, 1991.

11. Cf. Ziva Frieman, “The Changing Workplace” in Progressive Architecture, March, 1994:
pp.51-55

12. Cf. company manual for XEROX AFI guidelines, 1995

13. Cf. Peter Andrews in “The Architecture of Cyberspace,” in Progressive Architectue, October
1994, pp. 78-81, 106.

14. Cf. Per Kristian on Palo Alto in “Architecture in Cyberspace,” Progressive Architecture, 1994.

16. Cf. Marcos Novak. “Transmitting Architecture (Trans Terra firma). In Architectural Design,
1995, vol. 11-12.

references:

1. Benedikt, Michael (ed). “Cyberspace: First Steps.” The MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.
1991: pp. 1- 210.

2. Gibson, William. Neuromancer. Berkely Publishing Group. Berkeley, Ca. 1984.

3. Slouka, Mark. “War of the Worlds: The High Tech Assault on Reality.” Harper Collins
Publishers. 1995.

4. Novak, Marcos. “Transmitting Architecture: Trans Terra Firma/Tidsvag Noll v2.0.”
Architectural Design. v. 11-12, 1994: pp 43- 7.

5. Ostler, Timothy. “Architecture in Cyberspace.” The Architects Journal . May, 1994: pp. 33-
5

6. XEROX Company Manual: “Alternative Facilities Iniciative: Field Office Facility Design
Concepts and Principles.” Feb. 3, 1995.

7. Ludlow, Peter (ed.). “High Noon on the Electronic Frontier.” MIT Press. Cambridge, Mass.
1996: pp. 1-6, 25-131.

8. Anders, Peter. “The Architecture of Cyberspace.” Progressive Architecture. Oct, 1994: pp
78-106.

9. Frieman, Ziva. “The Changing Workplace.” Progressive Architecture. March, 1994: pp
47-55.

10. Mitchell, William J. “ Virtual Architecture.” Architecture. Dec, 1993: pp.40-3.

11. Pastier, John. “Abstract Design for an Abstract Client.” Architecture.. May, 1987: 147- 49

12. Paul, Lawrence G.(prod.). Blade Runner. Universal Studios, 1981.

13. Venturi, Robert. “Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic Architecture.” MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass. 1996: pp. 1-15

Addendum (developments as of 12/5/96):

I have been formally asked by Dr. Norton of the Science, Technology, and Society department to add this addendum so the reader may be updated on the progress of this project. Please note, however, that these are the findings of my research by the end of Fall semester, 1996 and are by no means final. I will therefore add another addendum in April, 1997 at the thesis conclusion for further update on the project’s progress (in which case we may also argue the actual completedness of the project as I hope this will spark ongoing investigation in future generations of students). I will also add to this book volumes 2 and 3 which will comprise mostly visual documentation of the building. Volume 2 will document the stage the thesis was in at the end of Fall semester, 1996, and volume 3 will document the final stage of the thesis at the conclusion of Spring semester, 1997. Finally, when volume 2 is complete, I will add a commentary so to provide a complete depiction of the project. Until then, I will use this addendum to state only my ideas on the project by the end of Fall semester and will leave detailed descriptions of the building to the volume 2 commentary.

My investigations this past semester dealt mostly with the actual physical building. Though my original intentions had been to investigate both the physical and virtual sides of the institute simultaneously, this was not the case. However, this turned out to be a more appropriate means of investigation. Dealing with both sides of the program simultaneously was not only impractical from a time constraint standpoint, it also would’ve diverted my attention from the more important central theme of the project: developing a physical building for the institute in which people might congregate publically by facilitating the mergence of real space and cyberspace. I therefore concentrated most of my attention this semester on the development of the physical architecture of the institute. I intend to address the virtual side in more detail by the end of next semester.

Though I concentrated on developing the physical architecture first, this would not have been possible without the information I had collected from my cyberspace research. At first, I struggled with the form and exact function of the building. I was not sure exactly how to locate the building on the site and whether or not the building should contain certain functions as I had described in my program. Overall, I was lacking a system the building would follow in its design. After trying many tireless options, I finally settled on a certain metaphor drawn from cyberspace which seemed to yield a pertinent system for my building’ s design. The metaphor I am referring to is that of the cyberspace “matrix”.

In cyberspace, as described by Gibson as well as many scholars today who are debating the composition of cyberspace, we are faced with a barren datascape; a large, empty void which we must somehow give definition. To accomplish this, we begin by slicing it up the way we always have in history when attempting to define the undefined -- we impose a grid upon it. In cyberspace, then, we use this grid three-dimensionally (Cartesianally, of course) in order to plot points in space or, if you will, build within the grid. In other words, this grid forms the “bones” or “main structure” of cyberspace in which forms are made. This, of course, has implications and metaphors which touch down on many areas, but, for the purpose of the institute building, it possesses very relevant applications:

1. The institute building, as a place where cyberspace is made and its generating technology is housed, should somehow metaphorically relate tocyberspace since it does after all, as yet still in theory, have its virtualcounterpart there.
2. The technology of cyberspace will be the most self-inclusive, self-sustaining, and rapidly-evolving technology we have ever known.Therefore, the building type which will house its hardware, such as this institute, will have to be equally adaptable. This grid metaphor could then be carried over to the construction of the physical building by relating thecyberspace matrix grid to the steel-frame structural grid of the building.The grid module itself could be adjusted in dimensions to suit the purposes of the building. It could then be established as the permanent “bare bone” structure into which temporary structures and walls maybe inserted and removed according to the needs of the institute at anygiven time.
3. The grid of cyberspace represents a system bound to this world -- our world -- which we impose upon cyberspace for its familiarity as an ordering system (i.e. the grid of meridians and parallels we imposed upon the face of the globe, the grids of city streets we imposed when
plotting land, the Cartesian grid we imposed upon numeric functions, etc.). In other words, due to the infinite capabilities of cyberspace,we, as finite beings, use an aid which is familiar to us from this world; a“ladder” , if you will, which we climb to a higher level where we no longer need it. We then simply throw it away. This aid or “ladder”,then, would be the matrix grid for, one day, we will no longer need it to understand and create within cyberspace. Until that point, however, the grid represents a beginning which, if nothing else, is a means tofind an end. In the same sense, the structural grid of this new institutebuilding type is a means or frame work through which the institute will evolve to an end result or definition.

As we see, the matrix gid of cyberspace works well both symbolically and functionally as an ordering system for the macrostructure of the building. Another metaphor from cyberspace also allows for a pertinent ordering system in the building. If we recall section III of this book, I described Marcos Novak’s concept of “archimusic”. Here, Novak describes how the two arts embodying space and time, architecture and music, must be brought together to create a new art of space-time or archimusic in order to effectively communicate information in cyberspace which indeed entails consideration by the architect of movement through both space and time. But what if this concept could be used to provide the physical facilities of cyberspace institutes such as this with the flexibility they need? What if the physical architecture takes on a certain spatiality modeled after the temporal qualities of music to create a spatio-temporal architecture which is absolutely occasional or “of-the-moment”: capable of conforming to any needs at any given moment?

In order to better understand this, let us look at the nature of a musical score. The background rhythm in a score of music remains constant and could be taken as the “structure” of the score and thus we may apply this to the structure of the building. Next, the musical intonations and variations within the given score play around and against the rhythmic background fluctuating sometimes in sync, sometimes in opposition to, but always in and around the regular background rhythm. We may apply this to the temporal qualities of the free-formed structures built within and around the regular structural grid of the building. Lastly, much like the strategic syncopations which add dramatic and timely fluxuation to a musical score, these free-formed structures may themselves take on a dramatic quality of movement and pause by providing for surfaces that could be pushed, slided, hinged, attached, and detached at will in order to add the ultimate and final level of flexibility and spatio-temporality -- thus, archimusic applied to real space.

These concepts will, of course, receive further attention as the project continues to evolve. Due to this state of mid-development, then, it would be inappropriate here to go into further discussion of details within the building (which, not to mention, would be futile without proper visual reference). I will, therefore, reserve further discussion for volume 2.

The final evolution of the project can be found by clicking on the below image.

AR Institute

brand: University of Pennsylvania

work performed: concept, architectural design, drawing, paper modeling, 3d modeling, rendering

Design for an ubiquitous augmented environment for Penn University to host such events as global augmented reality tournaments, VR technology conventions in which guests can attend virtually as well as physically, and various other activities centered around the application and study of telepresence technologies.

Full Thesis