Kudos, Studio Wikitecture - Winner of the 2007 AMD Open Architecture Network Challenge's Founders Award

Our very own Keystone Bouchard (aka Jon Brouchard) continues to trailblaze. He and his team at Studio Wikitecture - a group he co-founded on the principles of Web 2.0-based architectural collaboration methodologies - have taken the Open Architecture Network's Founders Award for their entry and design of the Nyaya Tele-Medicine facility in Western Nepal. The goal was to design a wired medical clinic in the Himalayan foothills that will connect 250,000 people to doctors around the world via the Internet.

Why did you decide to enter this when there is no cash award?
Keystone Bouchard: Since the 'Open Architecture Network' mission is all about open sourcing architecture for humanitarian purposes, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to submit an entry for this competition, composed in the same collaborative and open-source fashion.

The bottom line: this is about connecting architecture and technology with communities in need. As Turk Pipkin points out in this video, the winners don't actually win a prize; rather, they win an opportunity to help change the world.



Here's a time lapse video of Studio Wikitecture's evolving design:



The Wiki-Tree is a version tracking system that - instead of tracking text documents in a linear history like Wikipedia - tracks versions of 3-dimensional models and saves them within a continually evolving 3-dimensional digital tree 'canopy'. Like Wikipedia, this 3D-Wiki allows a loose, self-organized group of contributors to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and vote on which design iterations should be considered for further refinement.

What's next, Keystone?
Keystone Bouchard: Our top priority, at this point, is to build more awareness of Wikitecture's potential, recruit more 'Wikitects' and find our next project. Ideally, we would like to take on a paid project that will actually be built in Real Life, but we are open to other possibilities as well. We still have a lot to learn, but we have gathered a tremendous amount of qualified and diverse talent within the Wikitecture community from around the world, and are confident we can meet or exceed the level of service offered by a traditional architectural practice model.

We're also hoping to find some investment, financing or sponsorship to help develop the Wikitecture technology into Phase 2. We have a long list of improvements we want to make, but primarily we need to simplify the interface and improve the web-side technology.

The competition was announced at the 2007 TED Conference and launched at the 2007 World Economic Forum in Africa in June.

Keystone Bouchard's "Wikisonic" to get Real at the Tech Virtual Museum

"Turns out, I guess, that it actually is possible in Real Life. Go figure!" said Keystone Bouchard (aka Jon Brouchoud). Gasp! He was referring to his Wikisonic project, an instrument for collaborative musical composition that he created in-world with the technical assistance of Annie Obscure, and the scripting assistance of Dirty McLean, and that I blogged about back in early November.



Keystone is the founder of Architecture Islands, an incubator for architects and designers in virtual worlds, and also leads the Architecture in Second Life community group. He is co-founder of Studio Wikitecture, a Web 2.0 based architectural collaboration methodology, and founder of Crescendo Design, a studio specialized in developing sustainable design concepts. His ‘Nutrihouse’ design was chosen for construction in the Cradle-to-Cradle Home competition from over 625 entries worldwide. And I could go on for quite a while longer here, but let me hurry on to tell you the news...


In early February, Keystone got it into his head to submit Wikisonic to the Tech Virtual Museum Workshop in San Jose, California. "The main idea of the project was to invite collaboration, virtual and otherwise, toward the design of museum exhibits for The Tech museum. By submitting the concept, I had essentially open sourced the Wikisonic idea," explained Keystone, and like so many of the concepts that he conceives, it is now licensed under a Creative Commons license, and can be reused as long as Keystone is given credit.

In the Real Life version of Wikisonic, for which Keystone won a cash prize of $5,000 US, visitors will see a series of notes arranged on a wall similar to the notes on a musical staff. Each note will have a switch, with activates and de-activates both a light and an audible tone (each note in a scale in the key of C) contained within each note/switch. A trigger perpetually circulates through the score. As it passes by, it will play only the notes that have been activated by visitors.

The Second Life version, which Theory Shaw and I had the privilege to try out in this video with Keystone, can be seen here. When you active or de-activate a note, the installation changes - in real time - and a collective "song" emerges.



You can play with Wikisonic in Second Life, by teleporting directly from here to Keystone's Gallery of Reflexive Architecture. The Real Life exhibit in San Jose will open in June, and Keystone will be there.